Don’t think commercial real estate listings are valuable? Don’t tell that to CoStar Group.
CoStar, an online commercial real estate information service, this week entered an agreement to acquire online commercial listings site LoopNet, Inc. The transaction is valued at about $860 million.
In a press release, CoStar predicted that the combined services will become the top online resource for researching, analyzing and marketing commercial real estate properties.
Members of the boards of directors of both companies have approved the transaction. The deal is expected to close by the end of 2011.
“We are combining two innovative companies that have transformed the commercial real estate industry,” said Andrew Florance, CoStar Group’s founder and chief executive officer, in a written statement. “We believe that the combination of our two outstanding and complementary companies will lead to even more innovation and greater efficiencies.”
The addition of LoopNet’s commercial real estate listings leaves CoStar with a database that holds about 2 million active commercial listings.
The companies boast nearly 160,000 paid subscribers between them, and combined earnings of about $320 million.
