REA Group, News Corp’s online real estate company from Australia, is buying rival iProperty Group for $414 million, reports ET, valuing the latter at AUD $750 million. This will add iProperty’s websites in Thailand, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Indonesia to REA’s portals in Australia, the US and China, with plans to expand in the Asia regions. REA already owns a stake in iProperty which operates online real estate portals in India, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia and Philippines and had bought 17.2% stake in it for $106 million from Axel Springer’s French subsidiary SeLoger.com in July last year. News Corp owns 62% of REA, while REA owned about 22.7% of iProperty. REA will offer iProperty shareholders either AUD $4 per share or a mix of AUD $1.20 a share in cash and 0.7 shares in a newly formed unlisted company, which…
