Digital media and advertising group REA has agreed to pay $70m for a controlling stake in one of its portfolio companies, India-based online property marketplace operator Elara Group, Business Standard has reported.
News Corp, the media group that is REA’s majority owner, will invest $34.5m in Elara as part of the deal, increasing its stake from 22.1% to 38.9%. REA’s share will go from 13.5% to between 47.2% and 61.1%, and the deal will consist of a mixture of cash and stock.
Elara is made up of online real estate listing platforms Housing.com, PropTiger and Makaan. It launched PropTiger in 2011 before acquiring Makaan in 2015 and buying Housing.com two years later in a deal that valued the overall company at $285m.
REA and News Corp provided $70m in convertible note financing for the company in January this year after it had secured $35m in debt financing from Citi Singapore in 2018.
News Corp and telecommunications group SoftBank had supplied $55m at the time of the Housing.com purchase, and PropTiger’s earlier backers included News Corp, SoftBank, Horizon Ventures and Accel.
Elara will operate as an independent subsidiary of REA once the transaction closes, with the corporate taking five of the nine seats on its board of directors.
