SiteMinder debuted on the Australian Stock Exchange this week - making it one of the first travel technology companies to go public since the global distribution systems in the 2010s.
The accommodation distribution and technology marketplace offered over 120 million shares to investors, giving it a market capitalization of $1.3 billion.
It marks a successful three years at the helm for CEO Sankar Narayan (In The Big Chair interview here), who took over from co-founder and managing director Mike Ford.
We spoke to Narayan at the end of the company's first day of trading...
This is one of the first B2B travel tech IPOs for a number of years. What does that say about the wider market in which you operate at the moment?
I think, firstly, it says that B2B travel tech - a space that’s traditionally been seen as lagging behind other industries in innovation - can stand among the best and most successful companies in the world.
SiteMinder is no overnight success; our IPO has been a 15-year journey that began with two pioneers.
With 1,350 partners in travel tech, I can say that there are some real innovators out there, many starting small like we did, and I’d encourage them to keep at it. There is a place for B2B travel tech on the global innovation stage.
Secondly, it affirms that travel has merely changed and is far from dead. As we speak, hotel bookings globally are now at 80% of 2019 levels, with numerous markets, including Spain, Portugal, Taiwan, the UAE and Costa Rica, having already returned to the volumes they experienced prior to the pandemic.
What do you think will be the biggest benefit of switching from being a private to a public company?
There are over one million hotels today that can benefit from improved online connectivity, and we provide a better way through an open hotel commerce platform. More than 32,000 hotels, plus all our people and partners, have always believed in this and our purpose of opening up every hotel’s access to online commerce.
Now, anyone in the world who also believes in this can be a part of SiteMinder. That’s the best part – that we can now invite every individual and institution that believes in being a part of something bigger and having a real, positive impact in the world—like we do—to be a part of our story.
Additionally, while our focus, purpose and strategy will remain unchanged in the public domain, a publicly-listed company can have a real, positive impact on employee engagement apart from the usual benefits of being publicly-listed.
We have an enterprise-wide employee share plan, for example, which promotes greater alignment with our teams and a real sense of ownership. Along with benefits like that, it’s such a boost to our people’s confidence and morale knowing that we’re backed by the world’s investment giants.
It’s one thing for me to say that I believe in what our people do, and that what they do matters; it’s another for an investor to say that they believe in them like I do.
And the biggest hindrance?
The additional distractions. We’ve always been a laser-focused company and a big part of our success is due to that.
Going forward, I’ve told all our people to stay focused in executing our strategy and the share price will take care of itself. I remind myself of the same.
What will be your strategic priorities following this week's successful public listing, both in terms of running the business and working within the recovery market?
I’ve always had strong conviction in SiteMinder, but it’s never been as strong as it is today. I set out a three-year strategy when I first joined the business in late 2018, and, while the road we’ve taken has had to change over the last two years, the destination has always been the same and here we are.
As I look ahead, public life doesn’t change our strategic priorities much at all. We will remain fully dedicated to our people, customers and partners, who have all experienced so much change in the last two years.
We will continue to evolve and enhance our open hotel commerce platform to meet the changing needs of our customers and to help them stay resilient in an always-dynamic environment.
If I’ve been reminded of anything over the last two years, as I sought to navigate the company through the pandemic, it’s that if you take care of your people, customers and partners, everything else tends to take care of itself.
We’ve always known that we have an opportunity to improve online access and performance for every accommodation provider, of any size, in any location in the world. That overarching priority remains unchanged.
How does a public listing have an impact on any M&A activity in the coming months and years?
We remain primarily focused on organic growth.
While M&A is a useful tool to complement our organic growth strategy, and the additional capital we gained through our IPO has put us in a stronger position to pursue further growth, we have no M&A activity to report on at the present moment.
What was SiteMinder's most important "investor story" during the roadshows ahead of the IPO?
Beyond the numbers and the product, investors make their choices on one thing and that’s the people.
We were so proud of how we carried ourselves during the pandemic - the most challenging time of our lifetimes - and ultimately our resilience and strength in performance over the last two years stood as testament to our ability to deliver on our ambitious plans.
We happen to also be a market leader that delivered more than 100 million reservations in the year prior to the pandemic. That number is hard to ignore, particularly when you consider the significant opportunity available to us to help hotels transform and become more connected to the world through our open hotel commerce platform and global go-to-market capability.