 "Housing.com may not acquire PropEquity")
The deal has been put off due to valuation concerns. “Over valuation issues, Housing’s board has decided it is not interested in PropEquity,” said a source close to Housing.com.
Had the deal taken place, Housing.com would have had a ready revenue stream from business to business (B2B) clients.
PropEquity’s Chief Executive officer (CEO) Samir Jasuja said, “our’s is a hugely profitable company with over Rs 17 crore in bank and its last year’s profit is three times the revenue of Housing at Rs 4 crore”.
“Housing.com cannot afford us,” said Jasuja, adding that “the internal squabble between investors and the founders has impacted the deal.”
PropEquity, is in talks with three large investors at the moment who have valued PropEquity at much higher valuations of Rs 80 crore that is currently being speculated in the market.
PE Analytics owns and operates PropEquity which is an online subscription-based real estate data and analytics platform covering over 65,000 projects of 16,000 developers across over 40 cities in India. It adds approximately 500 projects every month.
The company’s clients are among the largest and most respected names in the real estate private equity fraternity, leading developers, and BFSI. The company has over 250 employees. PropEquity is majority owned by entities belonging to American hedge fund Och-Ziff Capital Management Group.
Housing, which was set up in 2012 by a dozen IITians, is already in talks to acquire Realty Business Intelligence for Rs 8 crore. “Housing may bid for $2-3 million,” a source directly in the know of the matter had said last week. It has been in talks with Realty Business Intelligence for around four months now.
Reality Business Intelligence is a professionals’ organisation, which aims at providing information on the real estate sector, tracking trends and creating collateral risk management tools through the use of technology.
In March, Housing.com had acquired Indian Real Estate Forum (IREF) for around Rs 8 crore.
IREF is a forum where registered users can exchange information, experiences and views on real estate projects, builders and miscellaneous real estate related topics. It has a subscriber base of 1,50,000.