Priceline once again ups its investment in Chinese travel site Ctrip

Priceline and Ctrip, sitting in a tree, I-N-V-E-S-T-I-N-G. That’s the sort of rhyme primary school kids would be chanting right now if primary school kids liked reading SEC filings, because Priceline’s October amendment of its Schedule 13D form revealed yesterday that the American company has once again upped its investment in Chinese online travel company Ctrip.

If you’ve been following Ctrip closely, you’ll probably recall that Priceline made a US$500 million investment into Ctrip this summer, and then upped its investment by another US$135 million or so in September by buying Ctrip’s publicly-listed stock. That left it having invested a total of about US$635 million for a 5.84 percent share of Ctrip as of the end of September.

But October’s filing shows that Priceline has continued to buy shares in Ctrip. Over the month so far, Priceline has picked up about 3 million more of Ctrip’s American Depository Shares, thereby investing another US$76 million in the company and upping its share to 7.9 percent, according to our calculations.

Apparently, Priceline’s interest in the company is not waning. Its original agreement with Ctrip enables the company to buy up to ten percent of the company, and it appears as though Priceline is planning to do just that.

(h/t to Techweb)