REA Group—a News Corp subsidiary and owned by the Murdochs—has announced its third offer to acquire UK-based real estate portal Rightmove.
News Corp, which owns REA, also owns and operates several other real estate portals, including Realtor.com®. REA initially bid on the portal on Sept. 5, offering $7.32 billion in cash and stock takeover. After Rightmove turned this offer down, REA countered by offering $7.8 billion on Sept. 16.
Now, in the third offer made Sept. 23, REA is offering $8.1 billion in a proposal that CEO Owen Wilson said provides “a combination of immediate value certainty in cash and at the same time gives Rightmove shareholders an increasing opportunity in core digital property and adjacencies where we have much expertise.”
Wilson commented in a release that the company believes “the combination of our world-leading expertise and technology with the attractive Rightmove business will create an enhanced experience for agents, buyers and sellers of property.”
“We live in a world of intensifying competition and this proposed transaction would bring together two highly complementary digital property businesses for investment and growth,” he continued. “We are genuinely disappointed at the lack of engagement by Rightmove’s Board and we strongly encourage the Rightmove Board to engage.”
Rightmove had previously considered the first two offers “uncertain, highly opportunistic and unattractive,” as stated by Chairman Andrew Fisher in a release.
In response, REA pointed out that Rightmove’s “share price has lacked any sustained upward momentum for two years,” and insisted that “now is a natural time to be able to support and accelerate Rightmove’s strategic objectives for the benefit of all stakeholders.”
Reuters reported, however, that Rightmove shares recently increased 2.8%, while REA’s are down 2.5%.
Regardless, the Rightmove board said that they will “carefully consider” this increased third offer.
REA’s persistence to acquire Rightmove may have to do with the rivalry between Realtor.com and CoStar Group—the owner of Homes.com and other portals.
CoStar Group made a similar foray into the international portal market last year, acquiring UK portal OnTheMarket, which now claims its business has seen significant growth since the deal went through. REA’s bid would appear to put NewsCorp on a trajectory to compete with CoStar in this market as well as others.
Move Inc. (Realtor.com’s parent company) and CoStar have recently been duking out their rivalry in a different arena: the courtroom. A data-theft lawsuit filed by Move against CoStar claims that a former Move employee now working for CoStar stole proprietary information that they then used to help CoStar grow its business.
The court actually denied Move’s request for preliminary injunction and limited expedited discovery on Sept. 23, with Judge George H. Wu stating that “Move has not made the ‘clear showing’ that it should be awarded the ‘extraordinary’ and ‘drastic’ remedy of a preliminary injunction.”
Both companies have also sparred over web traffic numbers as CoStar continues to claim Homes.com has surpassed Realtor.com, a claim that the other portal disputes.
