News Corp. (NWS,NWSA), owned by media baron Rupert Murdoch, announced late Monday that India-based online real estate service providers PropTiger.com and Housing.com will come together to become India's largest online real estate services company.
As part of the transaction, REA Group Limited (REA.AX) will invest $50 million in the joint entity, with an affiliate of Softbank Group Corp, investing $5 million.
The company noted that the $55 million fresh investment in the joint entity is the largest investment in India's digital real estate sector in the last two years.
News Corp. remains the largest shareholder of PropTiger, and also owns 61.6% of REA Group.
Following the deal, representatives of REA and Softbank will join the board of the joint entity, which will continue to be chaired by a News Corp representative.
Henry Ruiz, Chief Digital Officer, REA Group, Simon Barnett, Sales Director, News Corp and Jonathan Bullock, MD, Softbank Group International will join Raju Narisetti (chair), Ravi Adusumalli from SAIF Partners and Prashanth Prakash from Accel Partners as investor directors on the board of the joint entity.
Dhruv Agarwala, co-founder and CEO of PropTiger, will serve as CEO of the joint entity.
Jason Kothari, CEO of Housing.com, has decided to move on to pursue other opportunities in the Indian Internet space. He will continue to be an advisor to the joint entity through the end of February, 2017.
PropTiger is the largest online residential real estate brokerage firm, having completed transactions worth $1.5 billion since its founding in 2011.
Housing.com is India's most popular online platform for buying and selling homes, receiving over four million visits every month.
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