OnTheMarket accepts £100m takeover bid

OnTheMarket (OTM) has accepted a takeover offer for the business.

A stock market announcement this morning, following its interim results, said Co-Star UK has made an offer worth 110p per share for OTM and is recommending that shareholders back it.

The acquisition values the entire issued and to be issued ordinary share capital of OnTheMarket at approximately £99m.

The offer has the support of 29.5% of OnTheMarket's share capital, which includes its six largest shareholders.

Jason Tebb, chief executive of OnTheMarket, said: "From a position of strength, partnering with CoStar will significantly accelerate our strategy with the clear target of becoming the market leader, whilst staying committed to fair and sustainable pricing. 

“CoStar will bring industry-leading global expertise and significant financial firepower to invest in OnTheMarket, allowing us to accelerate our transformation of the sector. We have strong shared values in our commitment to agents who we believe will benefit from unparalleled value and greater opportunities to enhance their businesses."

Andy Florance, chief executive of CoStar, said: "We believe the acquisition of OnTheMarket represents an attractive and efficient entry point for CoStar into the estimated £8 trillion United Kingdom residential property market. We are excited to welcome the OnTheMarket team to the CoStar family.

OnTheMarket was founded by agents with the mission to provide a competitive alternative to the existing property portals in the United Kingdom. OnTheMarket has successfully developed a large network of agents and access to property listings by taking an agent-friendly approach and providing high intent leads at a fraction of the cost of the dominant players in the market.

“CoStar has a strong track record of acquiring, investing in and building online property marketplaces into leading positions, including LoopNet, Apartments.com, and most recently Homes.com. With Homes.com online traffic of approximately six million monthly unique visitors at acquisition, we invested aggressively in content, technology and marketing and, in the past year, monthly unique visitors have surged more than 1,200 per cent. to reach over 100 million monthly unique visitors in September 2023 according to Google Analytics, generating millions of leads directly to agents.

“We are excited to combine CoStar's resources and leading marketplace experience with OnTheMarket's agent-focused culture to create a leading player in the United Kingdom marketplace and provide increased choice and higher quality offerings for consumers."

https://www.investegate.co.uk/announcement/rns/onthemarket--otmp/offer-for-onthemarket-plc/7825842