LendingTree eyeing strategic investments, but in no hurry to do deals

Digital lending firm LendingTree Inc. is eyeing strategic investments that can accelerate growth, but the company is not in a hurry to make deals.

"From an M&A perspective, as an acquisitive company, we've looked at a lot of things over the last year. We, in light of where valuations are and in light of our balance sheet, we've been very, very disciplined over the last year. But we do look at things that will be investments," said John Moriarty, president of the LendingTree Next division, during the company's third-quarter earnings call.

The company feels that there is no urgency to add more investments to its portfolios as it can continue to expand smoothly until it finds a potential opportunity.

In early 2020, LendingTree invested $80 million in a banking and investing service, Stash. It later sold 20% of the investment position in Stash to add $46 million in cash to its balance sheet.

"We were presented with an opportunity to monetize some portion of it. We ended up selling about 20% of our position, just north of 20% of our position in a sort of a side transaction with some of their existing investors. And so it was a good opportunity for us to take some of our chips off the table, put some cash on the balance sheet. At the same time, we still own a pretty sizable position in that business," CFO Trent Ziegler told analysts.