The company behind the popular UK property sites Zoopla and PrimeLocation and the price comparison service uSwitch is being bought by a US private equity firm Silver Lake in a £2.2 Bn deal. The Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC and Canadian pension fund PSP will also take minority stakes.
The deal has been backed by more than 31% of investors, including ZPG’s largest investor, the newspaper group Daily Mail and General Trust with its nearly 30% shareholding. Under the terms of the deal, Silver Lake will pay a premium of 31%. Before the deal can be confirmed, Silver Lake needs to get 75% of shareholders to agree. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of this year.
Alex Chesterman, the founder, and CEO of ZPG, said the company will benefit from Silver Lake’s “technology expertise” and global network, which will help drive the firm’s growth. Silver Lake said it did not expect to make any material headcount reductions and that it would preserve ZPG’s existing management team, brand, and culture to ensure continuity.
ZPG, which was founded in 2007, operates a portfolio of websites, including property portals PrimeLocation and thinkproperty.com, cloud-based estate agency and property management software platforms Alto, Jupix and ExpertAgent, as well as property market analytics site Hometrack. The company is also involved in consumer comparison sites uSwitch and Money. The group’s websites and apps attract over 50 M visits per month and over 25,000 business partners use its services. Zoopla has become a fixture of the UK house hunting experience. Silver Lake is a California-based tech investor, which has backed companies including Alibaba, GoDaddy and Tesla and has around $39 Bn in assets under management.
