What? Classified Ventures (CV), a provider of digital marketing solutions for real estate and automotive categories, is exploring the possibility of putting its Apartments.com business on the market.
Why it matters: Real estate targeted online advertising services capture a substantial amount of spending worldwide. This category continues to grow as consumer behavior keeps changing over the years.
According to sources such as Chicago Tribune and Market Watch, Chicago-based Classified Ventures LLC announced yesterday it is currently exploring “strategic options” for its Apartments.com business (launched in May, 1998), to which end it is relying on New York-based investment bank Moelis & Company LLC, in order to find the best alternatives.
This process, however, will not impact CV’s Cars.com business.
No decision has been made regarding any transaction at this time, but it is expected that over the next few months, CV’s board of directors and management team will evaluate a variety of strategic options for the company’s Apartments.com portal, which includes category-leading sites such as Apartments.com, RentalHomesPlus.com, and ApartmentHomeLiving.com. These Web sites, along with Cars.com, are designed as digital alternatives to newspaper classified ads and have generated significant revenue for its owners.
Classified Ventures –a strategic joint venture among A.H. Belo Corp., Gannett Co. Inc., The McClatchy Co., The Washington Post Co. and Tribune Co.– publishes online classified ad sites Cars.com, Apartments.com, and HomeGain.com, providing automotive, rental and home listings in the USA. It distributes its content to a network of around 170 Web sites owned and operated by said newspapers and television stations nationwide, as well as top portal operators such as Yahoo! and MSN.
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