PSG
-
Latest property news
ZPG claims leads worth £1m from MoveIt for member agents
ZPG’s supplier panel tool MoveIt has generated referrals worth £1m for the company’s agent customers since it was bought by the portal giant in April 2016 as part of its £75 million Property Software Group (PSG) acquisition. PSG launched MoveIt, which was thought up by Portsmouth estate agent Jefferies & Partners during the early noughties but subsequently sold to PSG in 2014, to offer agents a way to access panels of suppliers including conveyancing, financial services and, more recently since uSwitch was acquired by ZPG, utility suppliers. MoveIt offers more than convenience, though – agents receive referral fees when their customers sign up to services sourced through MoveIt and, as sales instructions volumes drop and the lettings fees ban looms, offers agents an opportunity to up-sell products. The MoveIt tool is a clear example of the advantage Zoopla wants to offer agents over its rival Rightmove by creating a portal that offers agents a spectrum of services within the property market. ZPG acquisitions A more recent example of this includes its acquisition of print marketing firm Ravensworth, agents software firm Expert Agent, agent website supplier Technicweb and market data cruncher Hometrack. Commenting on the MoveIt milestone, ZPG Property Services Managing…
Read More » -
Agencies & People
ZPG purchase of Expert Agent to be reviewed by competition watchdog
ZPG’s purchase of software company Expert Agent earlier this month has been called in by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and is now under review, prompting shares in ZPG to drop this morning. The CMA has served an initial enforcement order to ZPG under section 72(2) of the Enterprise Act 2002. The announcement was made by ZPG this morning, saying that “having been informed of the review and the order ZPG is now engaging in a consultation with the CMA and will make a further announcement in due course”. The move has been widely anticipated within the industry after ZPG acquired Expert Agent – which trades under the name Websky Ltd – from private equity firm Metropolis. It in turn bought the company off founder Mike Griffiths in 2004. The ZPG acquisition of Expert Agent gave it a substantial slice of the UK agent software market, as it had already bought Property Software Group in April 2016. PSG at the time of acquisition by ZPG claimed to be used by over 40,000 estate agent letting agent branches across the UK, while Expert Agent is used by over 2,500 branches. The CMA has been in the warpath within the property…
Read More » -
Latest property news
Property Software Group (PSG) goes to Zoopla for £75 million
Zoopla Property Group Plc (“ZPG”) has announced that it has conditionally agreed to acquire The Property Software Group (“PSG”), the UK’s market-leading provider of software solutions to property professionals, used in over 8,000 agency branches. PSG was sold by the Guardian Media Group in December 2013 for £17.8million, in a management buyout backed by LDC and this sale at £75 million brings a return to LDC of over four times its investment, just 27 months later. An impressive sum for a company that was established less than 10 years ago and made underlying profits of £5.1million in the last financial year (to March 2016). PSG software products provide daily workflow tools to over 8,000 estate and letting agencies (quoted as being around 40 per cent) across the UK through its cloud-based (Alto, Jupix) and desktop (Vebra, Core, CFP) software products and provides essential systems for the day-to-day management of inventory, marketing and communications as well as diary management, chain progression, business reporting tools and financial processes. PSG’s newest products, MyPropertyFile and MoveIT, provide agents with digital platforms for engaging more effectively with their clients and generating additional revenue streams from a variety of property-related services. The acquisition of PSG is,…
Read More »
