Specialised investment group and leading South East Asian media group and its shareholders agree to acquire Malaysia's leading online property company.
February 27 2007, Kuala Lumpur - Ailligent Sdn Bhd, the owner and operator of the iProperty.com.my group of business, today announced the completion of a corporate exercise that saw new strategic shareholders and partners acquire a controlling stake in the company. These shareholders include JDI Ventures, a specialist investment company focused on Asian internet opportunities, and Catcha Media Group, one of the region's largest independent media groups.
iProperty.com.my is Malaysia's leading online property website. Working with the top property developers and over 500 of the top real estate agencies in the country, the website offers the largest online database of properties for sale and rent in Malaysia. The company has been in existence for three years, is profitable and has over 250,000 users each month.
Mr. Ken Tsurumaru, formerly the Chief Operating Officer of Catcha Media Group has been appointed CEO of Ailligent Sdn Bhd, the holding company for iProperty.com.my and related products. Said Tsurumaru, "I am very excited to work with the founders of the iProperty businesses to consolidate the leadership position of iProperty.com.my in the Malaysian market. It is the country's number one real estate website by whichever metric you may choose to measure, and we will market aggressively in the coming months to ensure its tremendous growth in users, revenues and profits continues."
Patrick Grove, Group CEO of Catcha Media Group, said, "This acquisition, along with several of our shareholders, of Ailligent and iProperty.com.my represents a desire for both the Catcha group of companies and several of its founding shareholders to move aggressively into online businesses."
Grove continued, "iProperty.com.my is the clear market leader in what is an enormously exciting space. Both Catcha Media Group and JDI Ventures will be able to add tremendous value to the company, and we felt it a fantastic opportunity to move aggressively into an extremely high growth industry and business. The acquisition is even more exciting considering the company is not only profitable, but poised for explosive growth."
When asked about plans to further grow the company and its websites, Tsurumaru added, "We will be working hard to take the business, its technology and expertise regional as soon as possible by way of joint ventures, acquisitions or the establishment of our own operations in new territories. The introduction of the Catcha Media Group and JDI Ventures will no doubt help fast track these plans."
The online real estate listings market is one of the world's fastest growing segments, with global comparables enjoying profit growth well in excess of 100% per year and an explosion in the number of users and advertisers. This growth is a simple function of the tremendous amount of convenience, wealth of information, flexibility and depth of content that the online real estate listings providers are able to offer as compared to traditional print real estate classifieds publications.
The iProperty website can be found at www.iproperty.com.my.
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