Business News

Schibsted Spain acquires Habitaclia

Tuesday 17. January 2017 - With the purchase of Habitaclia, a real estate portal specializing in the Mediterranean, Schibsted strengthens its leadership in the Spanish real estate sector.

Schibsted Spain announced this morning the acquisition of the real estate portal Habitaclia.com for an undisclosed figure. With this movement, Schibsted Spain, owner of the Spanish real estate site Fotocasa.es, strengthens its leadership in the real estate classified ads sector. Schibsted Spain also owns the online portals Infojobs, Coches.net, Vibbo and Milanuncios.

“Habitaclia is a great company and we are really happy to have them in the Schibsted family,” explained Frode Nordseth, CEO of Schibsted Spain.

“Habitaclia is the leading real estate site in the Mediterranean area. A company that has managed to grow extraordinarily in a highly competitive environment, basing its success on a great understanding of the user and advertisers needs. Habitaclia is a great company and we are really happy to have them in the Schibsted family,” said Frode Nordseth.

With Habitaclia, Schibsted will offer its users more than 1,500,000 properties from its more than 15,000 real estate agencies and thousands of private publishers as well. In addition, with this acquisition Schibsted will make it easier for advertisers to reach a larger audience.

Schibsted Spain brings together a group of online and mobile portals that accumulate more than 180 million visits monthly, 35 of them to their real estate classifieds. Now, with the purchase of Habitaclia, it adds more than 15% to this traffic.

“This acquisition will strengthen our position in Spain where we already have multiple reference brands both in generalist space and on employment, real estate and motor verticals. We don’t envision any further acquisition as we are decisively investing and supporting our brands, which are showing good performance,” said Nordseth.

Habitaclia will operate as an independent brand within Schibsted Spain, maintaining its offices and adding its more than 80 employees to Schibsted Spain. Fotocasa and Habitaclia will continue to operate autonomously, although processes will be established so that both brands can learn from the strengths of the other.

The turnover of Habitaclia in the three first quarters of 2016 was EUR 6.8 million, which represents a 36% growth over the previous year. The EBITDA margin in its main region (Catalonia, Baleares and Andorra) is above 30%. This incorporation will increase Schibsted Spain’s total business by 8%, leading to a combined turnover of more than 88 million in the first 3 quarters of 2016.