How Zoopla Helps Rightmove and Did DMGT Get it Wrong?

Over the last month Zoopla has clearly signalled to the market its intent to be a major player in the UK property portal market. It has snapped up Thinkproperty and Propertyfinder to clearly position itself in the top three UK portal businesses behind market leader Rightmove and DMGT’s The Digital Property Group.

In the process there have been some winners and some losers. However, it is Rightmove who is likely to gain the most from this move while questions have to be asked if DMGT truly missed a game changing opportunity.
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Zoopla Confirmed as Potential Propertyfinder Buyer

Last week it was revealed that the Propertyfinder’s management buy out attempt had failed and that the REA Group and News International had entered into a heads of agreement with a mystery party.  This mystery party has now been confirmed as being Zoopla.

Zoopla is a relatively new entrant to the UK online real estate market having initially launched a site around home prices and more recently moving into advertising homes for sale in the UK using the pay per lead model. Earlier this year  Zoopla closed out a £3.75m capital raising. Check out our coverage of Zoopla over the last year.

On reflection, this deal makes sense by providing Zoopla with a boost into being a serious competitor in the market and it gives propertyfinder.com and its team a new lease on life.

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Propertyfinder MBO Fails But …

The much talked about management buyout of propertfinder.com in the UK has failed however a new mystery buyer has emerged. In a late announcement on the ASX, the REA Group & News International have entered into a non-binding heads of agreement for the potential sale of their UK online business.

Internal sources say there were three “very detailed and strong bids” however the while the existing management put in a “very impressive bid”, they were not the preferred option.

A period of exclusivity has been entered with the preferred bidder so that they can undertake due diligence and the identity of the preferred bidder might be revealed as soon as the end of next week. Given the comment in the ASX release that “if this transaction successfully proceeds to completion, it is unlikely to have any impact on the guidance (already) provided”, the offer being considered is likely to be small.

The REA Group and News International have also kept the door open to close the business or just sell the assets to the preferred bidder as they continue the consultation process with staff – a prelude to closure.

So who is the mystery bidder?

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Metropix acquired by Daily Mail

Leading supplier of floorplans to the real estate industry, Metropix, has been acquired by the EDR Landmark Group Ltd, a subsidiary of publishing company Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT).

The announcement was made on Metropix’s blog yesterday. They write:

“The sale is the culmination of a competitive bidding process handled by PricewaterhouseCoopers Corporate Finance that commenced in April this year.

“We’ll now be working alongside the Landmark Information Group, Britain’s leading supplier of land and property search information. And we’ll also be in the same stable as several other well known names in real estate, such as primelocation.com and findaproperty.com.”

Metropix was established in February 2004 by Max Christian and Brian Farrell, who remain with the business. The company says that on average, over four floor plans are created using Metropix every minute of every working day.

Their customers range from national estate agency chains, such as the UK’s Countrywide and Sherry Fitzgerald in Ireland, to thousands of independent real estate agents and private individuals across the globe.

Since pioneering the world’s first technology to automatically generate 3D floor plans and Walkthroughs direct from a 2D plan, the Metropix product range has expanded to include Google Earth 3D models, interactive floor plans, and maps for both online and print.

Consolidation in the UK Market?

The UK property portal market is ripe for consolidtion.  The question is who is most likely to merge and what impact could it have?

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