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Analysts welcome Zoopla’s £160m acquisition of uSwitch

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By John Glenday, Reporter

April 30, 2015 | 2 min read

Analysts have broadly welcomed property portal Zoopla’s acquisition of price comparison service uSwitch for £160m, pointing out the potential for revenue synergies and new products.

Describing the deal as a ‘good step’ for Zoiopla Sohil Chotai, analyst at Edison Investment Research, said: “We believe this is a good step for the company, as it seeks to differentiate itself from Rightmove and compete effectively with new entrant to the property portal market: Onthemarket.com.

"Onthemarket lacks the large investment, strong mobile offering, large inventory and value-added services that are required to succeed. The uSwitch acquisition highlights Zoopla’s commitment to offering useful services for its customers.”

Whilst broadly supportive of the bold move it will add debt to Zoopla at a time when it is suffering the loss of agents from its property platform to rival services such as Rightmove and Onthemarket but Chotai points out that many agents have already returned to the fold, with Zoopla maintaining a healthy cash flow.

Chotai concluded: “We believe the uSwitch acquisition will allow Zoopla to offer greater user engagement, an enhanced customer experience – as well as revenue synergies from new products.”

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