Latham & Watkins Advises HotelPlanner in Three-Way deSPAC Merger With Reservations.com and Astrea Acquisition Corp.

HotelPlanner, a hotel and event booking technology platform, Reservations.com, a premier online travel agency, and Astrea Acquisition Corp., a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company, announced that they have entered into a definitive three-way merger agreement for a business combination. Through this transaction, HotelPlanner, with its family of brands including Meetings.com (and now Reservations.com), plans to leverage its 1+ million hotel room and alternative accommodation inventory, along with its proprietary booking engine, to unlock synergies across the travel ecosystem. 

The transaction is expected to position the combined company to capitalize on expected increased demand for individual, group, and corporate travel expand internationally and pursue attractive, well-timed, high-return M&A opportunities. Upon completion of the business combination, which is expected to occur in the fourth quarter of 2021, the combined travel technology company will operate as HotelPlanner, and will be listed on NASDAQ under the new ticker symbol “HOTP.”

Latham & Watkins LLP represents HotelPlanner in the deSPAC transaction with an M&A team led by Houston partner Ryan Maierson, Los Angeles partner Tana Ryan, and Bay Area partner Navneeta Rekhi, with Houston associate Erin Lee; and a capital markets team led by New York partners Marc Jaffe and Senet Bischoff, with Houston associate Michael Pascual. Advice was also provided on tax matters by Los Angeles/Century City partner Pardis Zomorodi, with Century City associate Abigail Friedman; on antitrust and competition matters by Washington, D.C. partner Ian Conner and Washington, D.C. counsel Joseph Simei, with Washington, D.C. associate Doug Tifft; and Brussels partner Sven Volcker, with Brussels associate Anthemis Economou; on real estate matters by Chicago partner Rachel Bates; on IP matters by New York partner Jeffrey Tochner, with New York associate Nancy Zhu; and on benefits and compensation matters by Bay Area partner Erin Murphy, with Chicago associate Juliet Rognlie.