LendingTree

LendingTree, Inc.
Type of business Public
Traded as
Founded 1996 (1996)
Headquarters Charlotte, North Carolina, United States
Owner
Founder(s) Doug Lebda
Key people Doug Lebda (CEO), Neil Salvage (President), Brad Wilson (CMO), Claudette Parham (CHRO), Paul Tyma (CTO), J.D. Moriarty (CFO), Nikul Patel
Employees 575+ (2018)
Website lendingtree.com

LendingTree, Inc. is an American company that operates an online lending exchange that connects consumers with multiple lenders, banks, and credit partners who compete for business. LendingTree is not a direct supplier of loans; it is instead a broker. Since being founded in 1998 LendingTree has facilitated more than 65 million loan requests. [2] It is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina.

LendingTree also provides financing tools, comparative loan searches and borrowing information.[3]

History

Founding

After graduating from Bucknell University, Doug Lebda went to work for PricewaterhouseCoopers in Pittsburgh as an auditor and consultant. When he decided to purchase his first home and obtain a mortgage, he found the process of visiting multiple banks and combing through mortgage offers frustrating, time consuming, and exhausting. Lebda realized that if the process was that difficult for someone with his financial acumen, then there must be a massive market of others with the same desire for a better way. With this idea, Doug founded CreditSource USA in 1996 with Jamey Bennett, whom he knew from Bucknell and had previous experience founding BookWire. The new company was later rebranded as LendingTree and by 1998, LendingTree launched nationally online with its headquarters in Charlotte, NC.[4][5]

IAC Ownership

LendingTree went through a successful IPO on February 15, 2000. Bennett left LendingTree after the IPO.

In May 2003, LendingTree, LLC was acquired by IAC/InterActiveCorp, former owner of Ticketmaster, Home Shopping Network and current owner of Match.com. In 2004, LendingTree acquired HomeLoanCenter.com and formed LendingTree Loans.

After 5 years, LendingTree spun off from IAC to join newly established Tree.com, Inc. Tree.com was the parent company of several brands and businesses in the financial services and real estate industries including LendingTree.com; GetSmart.com; DegreeTree.com; LendingTreeAutos.com; and DoneRight.com.[6]

In 2015 LendingTree disassembled the Tree.com umbrella to focus on its core brand, LendingTree, which now incorporates Business Loans, Personal Loans, Debt Consolidation, Free Credit Scores, and Student Loans along with its core mortgage products Home Loans, Mortgage Refinance, and Home Equity.[7]

Acquisitions

In June 2016, LendingTree kicked off a streak of several corporate development deals with the acquisition of SimpleTuition, a company in the student loans space.[8] Subsequent acquisitions include CompareCards (2016),[9] DepositAccounts.com (2017),[10] MagnifyMoney (2017),[11] SnapCap[12] (2017), and Student Loan Hero[13] (2018).

In November 2016, LendingTree announced plans to invest $47 million and double the employee base of its Charlotte headquarters over the following five years. The online lender's corporate expansion would create 314 jobs during that time span.[14]

References

  1. 1 2 "LENDINGTREE INC (TREE)". Retrieved 2016-10-18.
  2. ↑ "LendingTree Enters into a $250 Million Amended and Restated Credit Facility - Markets Insider".
  3. ↑ https://finance.yahoo.com/news/lendingtree-reinvents-borrowers-shop-money-133000433.html
  4. ↑ Goldberg, Steve (2014-08-03). "LendingTree: An original dot-com darling grows up". CNBC. Retrieved 2018-05-01.
  5. ↑ "LendingTree Is Booming, and Its Stock Soaring, As More Borrowers Shop Online".
  6. ↑ "Our Roots - Timeline". LendingTree.com.
  7. ↑ "Tree.com, Inc. Changes Corporate Name to LendingTree, Inc". www.prnewswire.com.
  8. ↑ "Valore - Crunchbase". Crunchbase.
  9. ↑ "CompareCards - Crunchbase". Crunchbase.
  10. ↑ "DepositAccounts.com". Crunchbase.
  11. ↑ "MagnifyMoney". Crunchbase.
  12. ↑ "SnapCap - Crunchbase". Crunchbase.
  13. ↑ "LendingTree, Inc. Announces Agreement to Acquire Student Loan Hero". Retrieved 13 July 2018.
  14. ↑ "LendingTree to add more than 300 jobs in Charlotte HQ expansion". www.bizjournals.com. Retrieved 2018-05-01.

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