realestate.com.au has partnered with Italian pay TV operator, SKY Italia, to buy a 90% stake in Casa.it for €9.6 million ($A15.9 million).
Founded in 1996, Casa.it has become Italy’s largest real estate site with over 2,800 estate agent offices subscribing to the service and advertising 130,000 homes for sale or for rent. Each month there are around 700,000 unique visitors to the site.
Casa.it has operations in Treviso, Northern Italy and call centre operations in Bucharest, Romania.
REA Group’s managing director Simon Baker said while Casa.it is currently a small business, it is profitable and is the market leader in a country with 60 million people, around 20,000 estate agent offices, high rates of home ownership, and strong broadband penetration.
“We believe that Italy is an emerging country for online real estate advertising and Casa.it is best placed to capture much of the growth in the market.
“We are pleased to be able to partner with SKY Italia. Casa.it will benefit from accessing the broad coverage of SKY Italia and the online real estate experience of The REA Group,” he added.
Following the transaction, realestate.com.au will own 59.4%, SKY Italia will own 30.6% and Casa.it’s founder and current CEO will retain 10%.
SKY Italia’s chief executive Tom Mockridge said the acquisition adds another dimension to SkyItalia’s business.
“We plan to work closely with Casa.it to gain greater awareness of our pay television services and potentially develop another channel to market.” he added.
Baker said the acquisition of Casa.it further expands the REA Group.
“We now have operations in Australia, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Italy. Together there are 14,800 agents advertising around 900,000 listings to 5.5 million unique visitors,” he concluded.
The transaction is subject to approval by the Italian Antitrust Authority and it is expected that the transaction will be completed in early to mid December 2006.
By Adam Parsons
