Scout24 remains public company after shareholders reject takeover bid

18 June 2019 10:00

Scout24

Germany’s Scout24 classified listings company is set to remain as a publicly-listed company after the takeover bid led by US groups Hellman & Friedman and Blackstone failed to secure the required 50% of shares earlier this month. The bidders only reached 42.8% of acceptances. Had the takeover gone ahead, it would have been the biggest-ever takeover of a German listed company by private equity.

Scout24 is best known for its ImmobilienScout24 property listings website, and its AutoScout24 portal across Europe. Earlier this year it added financial news site Finanzcheck to its cluster of assets.

The company had previously been owned by Hellman & Friedman, who had bought it from Deutsche Telekom in 2013 before listing it in 2015. The offer from the two private equity companies had valued the Munich-based Scout24 at €5.7bn including debt.

Earlier this month Hellman & Friedman and Blackstone had ruled out extending or improving their offer, signaling they were willing to walk away from the deal if investors rejected the terms. Several top-10 shareholders weren’t willing to tender their shares at the current price, people familiar with the matter had been quoted in reports as saying.

A tie up with the private equity giants, whose consortium was called Pulver Bidco, could have given Munich-based Scout24 additional firepower for acquisitions as it competes with Axel Springer SE and EBay Inc. for classified clients. Had the takeover gone ahead, it would have been the biggest-ever takeover of a German listed company by private equity.

Scout24 CEO Tobias Hartmann said of the result, “We will further focus on our growth strategy and continue to develop Scout24 as an independent company.” This will include its interest in buying parts of EBay Classifieds, which owns one of Scout24’s biggest automobile portals, mobile.de.

The company earlier reported a 21% revenue increase in the first quarter which led to a €70.9m operating profit, and confirmed its targets for the financial year.