The IPGA Group (iProperty), a company listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX), has entered the Indian market by acquiring Horizon Infoventures, which owns the Indian property portal RealAcres. The acquisition has been made through its wholly owned subsidiary iProperty Group Asia Pte Ltd. iProperty will introduce print, exhibition and online luxury products to the Indian market. They had acquired an events company in March this year (see below for acquisitions). The terms of the deal: iProperty will invest A$ 0.53 Million (around $470,000) in 4 tranches for 43 percent shares, and swap shares for 17 percent. They will have the option to acquire the remaining 40 percent based on future earnings. The management of RealAcres have a lock-in for a minimum of 3 years. The deal appears similar to iProperty's July 2008 acquisition of VRHouse.com.tw in Taiwan. RealAcres claims that it has around 211,000 property listings. The company is based in Mumbai, and focuses primarily on the Western India market. Do note that often real estate agents are offered free listings to get them to sign up for property sites, so the number of listings may not be an indication of paid listings, hence revenue. Significant players in the online property space in India include MagicBricks (Times Business), 99Acres (Info Edge), Indiaproperty (Consim) and Makaan.com. HT Media and Manorama Online are also planning real estate portals. RealAcres is just one of the acquisitions that the iProperty group has made since listing on the ASX. More on the iProperty Group…
