Online real estate listing firms Zillow Inc. (NASDAQ: Z) and Trulia Inc. (NYSE: TRLA) have entered a definitive agreement under which Zillow will acquire Trulia in an all-stock transaction valued at $3.5 billion. Trulia shareholders will receive 0.444 shares of class A common stock in Zillow for each share of Trulia stock they now own and will own about 33% of the combined company once the deal closes. According to the announcement, the deal offers a 25% premium to Trulia’s closing price last Friday.
The combined company will maintain both the Zillow and Trulia brands, and Trulia’s CEO will remain in his position, but reporting to Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff, who said:
Both companies have been enormously successful in creating compelling consumer brands and deep industry partnerships, but it’s still early days in the world of real estate advertising on mobile and Web. This is a tremendous opportunity to combine our resources and achieve even more impressive innovation that will benefit consumers and the real estate industry.
Although the two firms are primarily media companies, Trulia also offers software to real estate agents that helps them manage the sales process. Neither firm charges to list properties on it site, but they make money by charging real estate agents to show their contact information along with property searches.
The combined company will be the largest online real-estate firm by far. Zillow had nearly 54 million unique visitors to its website in June, and Trulia racked up nearly 32 million, according to comScore and The Wall Street Journal.
Zillow shares were trading down about 3% in Monday’s premarket, at $154.27 in a 52-week range of $70.28 to $159.26. The high was set last Friday.
Trulia shares were trading up nearly 17% to $65.79, above the 52-week range of $26.35 to $57.47. Trulia’s high was posted last Friday as well.
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