Finally, Housing finds a suitor, gets acquired by PropTiger

(Sitting on the yellow bean bag): Housing co-founder Advitiya Sharma with team. Advitiya and most of the 11 co-founders left Housing.

Just yesterday, I made a frantic call to Housing’s chief executive Jason Kothari when someone tipped me off about PropTiger acquiring it. “We are in talks with many entities. Housing is not being acquired by PropTiger,” Jason told me, vehemently denying the news. Grrr. That was a lie, we learned today.

The beleaguered real estate marketplace Housing has finally sold its entire operation to another real estate portal PropTiger in an all-stock deal.

And, Jason Kothari is no longer Housing’s chief executive officer. He quit with immediate effect post the share swap deal, but will continue to hold an advisory role in Housing.

Post-acquisition, PropTiger’s investor News Corp will also infuse US$50 million in fresh funds through digital advertising subsidiary REA Group. Housing’s majority investor SoftBank will bring in an additional US$5 million.

The Mumbai-based startup did not disclose the valuation at which the deal was struck. However, LiveMint cited sources to report that Housing was valued at about US$70-75 million, while PropTiger was valued at US$200-210 million, taking the stock swap ratio to about 3:1. The new entity will be valued at nearly US$270 million, the report says.

“The joint entity will draw on strengths of PropTiger, Housing.com, and Makaan.com to offer a holistic experience to consumers, real estate developments, brokers, and homeowners,” the companies said in a joint statement.

PropTiger acquired online classifieds platform Makaan.com in 2015 to launch its online-to-offline services. Acquisition of Housing will help the company strengthen its services throughout the process of home buying, from initial search and discovery to the final step of transaction closure.

See: Consolidation in real estate: Quikr and CommonFloor merge to kill Housing

Dhruv Agarwala, co-founder and CEO of PropTiger, will take over as CEO of the joint entity, but the company plans to retain the Housing brand and its employees.

News Corp remains the largest shareholder of PropTiger, and owns 61.6 percent of REA Group also. Representatives of REA and SoftBank will join the board of the merged company, which will continue to be chaired by a News Corp representative.

Housing has been reeling under the pressure of a cash crunch and high costs for the last 18 months. Jason was promoted as the CEO of Housing in 2015 after the ouster of co-founder Rahul Yadav. The startup has since been restructuring the business to increase focus on select services, and to cut costs. The company has been actively looking for a buyout offer.

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from Tech in Asia https://www.techinasia.com/finally-housing-finds-suitor-acquired-proptiger
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