News International is swapping its news sites’ property search contract, after letting its current provider get snapped up by a rival publisher.
Globrix took a “multi-million” investment from News International in 2007, but the publisher in 2009 sold back its 50 percent stake to founders, who promptly sold it on to DMGT‘s Associated Northcliffe Digital for £1.8 million.
Now News International has picked Zoopla to provide property search for The Times, Sunday Times and The Sun websites, beginning October.
News International was once a budding player in the online property stakes. As well as Globrix, it bought half of PropertyFinder for a reported £14.3 million in 2005.
But, a few years later, it wrote off £17.8 million against that investment and then sold PropertyFinder to Zoopla for just £700,000.
But the latest Zoopla deal has nothing to do with that and was done on proper terms, Zoopla tells paidContent.