Red Ventures digs deep for Bankrate website in $1.24bn personal finance drive
Digital marketing specialist Red Ventures is branching out into personal finance after laying down $1.24bn to wrest control of Bankrate.
Red Ventures digs deep for Bankrate website in $1.24bn personal finance drive
Awash with private equity cash Red Ventures swooped on its prey in order to gain an instant foothold in financial services; including Bankrate’s ‘Comprehensive. Objective. Free’ consumer advice service on everything from mortgages to savings, credit cards and insurance.
The business also deploys this expertise to assist large media companies such as CNBC and Dow Jones owned Marketwatch. Having secured its prize Red Ventures has pledged to set about leveraging its ‘millions of users across multiple brands’ in order to grow these services still further.
Ric Elias, chief executive of Red Ventures remarked: “We’re excited to join forces with the Bankrate team, which has built an impressive and powerful platform of consumer-facing financial services content and brands.”
Bankrate’s lineage stretches all the way back to 1976 but it was not until 1996 that the firm really took off with Bankrate.com, a portal which now boats 15m unique monthly visitors, although this failed to prevent it sliding to a $5.2m first quarter loss.
Subject to regulatory approval and the blessing of Bankrate shareholders the takeover should conclude this year.