22 December 2017, India:
Online classifieds site Quikr India Pvt. Ltd has bought two subsidiaries of Housing Development Finance Corp. Ltd (HDFC) for around ₹357 crore. The two subsidiaries are HDFC Developers Ltd and HDFC Realty Ltd.
According to stock exchange filing, HDFC has approved the sale of its entire stake in HDFC Developers Ltd. and HDFC Realty Ltd. to Quickr India Pvt. HDFC Realty was values around ₹255 crore and HDFC Developers was valued around ₹102 crore in the transaction. The sale is expected to complete before March 2018.
HDFC will take a minority stake in Quikr India. However, the size of the stake has not been disclosed. HDFC Developers Ltd owns the HDFC RED platform for online real estate classifieds. The classifieds site claims to have around 7,000 project listings and over 80,000 unique visitors per month. Its revenue for 2016-17 was ₹6.23 crore.
HDFC Realty Ltd operates the brokerage business. It has presence across residential and commercial properties as well as consulting and valuation services. It claims to have 300 member in-house sales team and 7,000 strong brokers across the country. Its revenue for 2016-17 was ₹35.25 crore.
“The future of real estate is digital, and Quikr has built a robust technology platform for consumers with products for developers and brokers who stand to benefit in the post-RERA (Real Estate Regulation and Development Act) regime. We hope to derive value from Quikr’s diversified customer base while offering our strength in the real estate sector,” said Renu Sud Karnad, Managing Director of HDFC.
Pranay Chulet, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Quikr said, “We see great synergies between Quikr and HDFC as we start working together to bring a seamless online to offline platform to developers and consumers.”
Kotak Investment Banking was the exclusive financial advisor to HDFC and Avendus Capital was the exclusive financial advisor to Quikr on this transaction.
Quikr was founded by Pranay Chulet and Jiby Thomas in 2008. It is present in 1,000 cities in India and it operates 14 classifieds business. It claims to have a user base of more than 30 million.
