Purplebricks’ biggest investor buys online agency ahead of Euro roll-out

The German-based Alex Springer publishing company, which is already the largest single investor in Purplebricks, has acquired a prominent online estate agency and property valuation service in France.

The acquisition of MeilleursAgents was via Axel Springer’s subsidiary AVIV, and complements the Springer-owned French property portals SeLoger and Logic-Immo; it appears to be part of a strategy rolling out valuation services across Europe.

AVIV chief executive Dr  Andreas Wiele says: “The acquisition of MeilleursAgents, the French market leader for price information and real estate professionals, is of strategic importance for AVIV. It will enable us to support the digitalization of the market and to further develop real estate search and brokerage … This enables us to offer real estate agents the most comprehensive offer on the market”.

AVIV was founded by Axel Springer last year in a bid to spearhead its attempt to acquire digital services connected with property and car listings, and classified advertising. 

Officially, AVIV’s vision is described as being “to serve consumers in their important decisions in life and to simplify not only the search for a new property or car but to also provide additional services in adjacent markets. These goals are achieved both organically by expanding the group’s existing services and through minority and majority investments in innovative business models.”

Sébastien de Lafond, the chief executive of MeilleursAgents, adds: “We are the leading provider of online real estate valuation and support 12,000 real estate agents every day in developing their businesses. This merger is great news for MeilleursAgents and its teams. We can now roll out our data expertise internationally and contribute to the digitization of the European real estate markets.”