£62m for the tech tycoon who revolutionised house buying
ZOOPLA’S founder looks set to scoop nearly £62m after Silicon Valley investors agreed to buy the firm for £2.2bn.
The property website’s chief executive Alex Chesterman, who set up the company in 2007, has more than 12.5m shares and options in its parent group ZPG. They are worth £61.5m under the terms of the 490p-a-share bid for ZPG by Silver Lake, a leading American technology investment firm based in Menlo Park, California.
The proposed deal also values the ZPG stock held by DMGT, the owner of the Daily Mail, at more than £640m.
DMGT is ZPG’s biggest shareholder with a stake of 29.8pc and has backed the takeover by Silver Lake. A successful takeover of ZPG by Silver Lake would take DMGT’s returns from its investment to £890m – more than 14 times what it put in.
The proposed deal caps a frenetic week of dealmaking in the City – including a £46bn takeover of Shire, Vodafone’s £16bn bid for swathes of Liberty Global’s European business and a £1.6bn offer for Virgin Money by Clydesdale owner CYBG.
ZPG shares rose 30.6pc, or 114.8p, to 490p. DMGT was up 1.3pc, or 9.5p, to 720.5p. Chesterman, a serial entrepreneur who sold DVD rental service Love Film to Amazon in 2011 for £200m, will stay on as chief executive of ZPG following the takeover.
The tycoon, a former executive at Planet Hollywood, last year bought a five-bedroom house on the seafront in Palm Beach, Florida, for £6.4m. The property has a swimming pool, a library and a guest suite.
Simon Patterson, managing director of Silver Lake, said: ‘ZPG is a great growth technology company. We are delighted to partner with Alex Chesterman, one of Europe’s leading and most accomplished technology entrepreneurs, to invest in ZPG’s continued growth.’