FILE- In this Feb. 22, 2018, photo, Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky speaks during an event in San Francisco. People who use the vacation rental website Airbnb are coming to Albany, N.Y., on Tuesday, March 6, to encourage lawmakers to rescind, or at least revise, a law authorizing hefty fines for short-term apartment rentals in New York City. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg, File)
Airbnb Inc’s founders were moments away from merging their China business with local competitor Tujia in January 2017. Executives and investors spent hours hashing out a deal. Preliminary term sheets were drawn up. Then in the final hour of negotiations, Airbnb pulled out.
Investors had hoped a truce would stop the companies from haemorrhaging money in the fight for control of China’s blazing home-sharing industry. But rather than take a page from Uber, which agreed to cede China to rival Didi in exchange for an equity stake, Airbnb chief executive officer Brian Chesky had a change of heart and decided to forge ahead in China alone.
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