The chairman and CEO of USA Interactive also anointed financial services as one of a handful of must-haves for a well-rounded e-commerce portfolio. With Charlotte, North Carolinabased LendingTree joining a conglomerate that includes Home Shopping Network, travel sites Expedia and Hotels.com and ticket agency Ticketmaster, Diller says that USAI will have a toehold in markets that account for three fourths of consumer Internet sales. LendingTree adds both a loan brokerage -- the firm earned $5 million last year, generating $22 billion in consumer loans for some 200 participating banks -- and a related real estate agent-referral business. "This is probably the most important strategic foot we've put down," Diller said in a May 5 conference call with analysts. With LendingTree's share of U.S. consumer loans well under 1 percent, Diller believes that its growth prospects are vast; the timing, however, gives some critics pause. "LendingTree certainly fits into what USAI is trying to do with its other businesses," says e-finance industry analyst Jaimie Punishill of Cambridge, Massachusettsbased Forrester Research. "But buying a mortgage company at the top of the refinancing boom probably isn't the smartest thing." Diller dismisses such concerns: "We're buying a business because of its long-term prospects, because we believe that the market is, to say the least, big enough. What we care about is that we've bought the right business in the right category -- and we're convinced we have."
