Durba Ghosh Moneycontrol News
Mortgage lender Housing Development Finance Corp (HDFC) has sold two of its subsidiaries, operating in the real estate brokerage and online property classifieds space, respectively, to Bangalore-based Quikr for a total consideration of Rs 357 crore.
It is an exchange swap deal where HDFC will get 3.3 percent in Quikr for the sale of HDFC Realty and HDFC Red, Renu Sud Karnad, Managing Director of HDFC Ltd said.
HDFC Realty operates the brokerage business, while HDFC Developers Ltd owns the HDFC Red platform for online real estate classifieds.
“Almost 60 percent of home buying decision starts online. We wanted to take HDFC Realty in that space and Quikr has built a robust technology platform for consumers with products for developers and brokers,” Karnad added.
Post the sale, HDFC Realty will be rebranded as “QuikrRealty in alliance with HDFC”, which will serve as an online-offline brokerage business that will draw demand from Quikr’s real estate consumer base.
The real estate vertical accounts for almost 30 percent of overall business for Quikr. Quikr had acquired Bangalore based real estate classifieds portal Commonfloor for USD 120 million in January 2016.
The deal is also strategically placed for HDFC Limited, one of the largest housing finance companies in India.
As a result of the deal, Quikr will online direct traffic of home buyers to the mortgage lender.
HDFC Red, which is the classifieds business, will be merged with Quikr Homes, Pranay Chulet, founder and chief executive of Quikr said at a conference in Bangalore.
Started in 2008, Quikr has so far raised around USD 370 million.
The company's investors include Warbug Pincus, Kinnevik AB, Tiger Global, Steadview Capital Management and Matrix Partners India.
Over the years, the company has added verticals such as real estate, automobiles and online recruitment, largely by acquiring smaller rivals such as Salosa, Stayglad and ZapLuk in the home services segment, Commonfloor and Grabhouse in the real estate segment, Hiree in the recruitment segment and Stepni in the automobile services segment.
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