Domain Pays A$180m for Campaign Management Platform Company Realbase

The Australian real estate portal operator Domain Holdings Australia has agreed to the A$180m acquisition of the Sydney-based campaign management platform company Realbase.

Formed in 2020 with the merger of competitors Campaigntracker and Realhub, Realbase claims to be the largest real estate marketing campaign platform in Australia and New Zealand and provides services to agents around an estimated 40% of transactions in the two markets.

Speaking of the acquisition, Domain's CEO Jason Pellegrino said:

“For some time we have been impressed by Realbase’s technological capabilities and products including innovative campaign management, high growth digital proposals and a rapidly expanding social media marketing offer.

Each of Realbase’s solutions complements and extends the value proposition Domain can take to agents. The acquisition of Realbase meaningfully increases the scale and impact of Domain’s Agent Solutions unit and strengthens our position as the leading provider of end-to-end agent workflow solutions.”

According to Realbase CEO Frank Greeff, the two companies have a lot in common:

“When we first started discussing a more connected relationship with Domain and its products, we quickly saw how compatible we were in technology, perspective and team culture. Realbase has a mission to transform real estate through technology, striving to provide customers with the best suite of tools,” Greeff said.

We are looking forward to scaling and growing alongside a company with a long-standing reputation for trust and quality in the industry. As a collective, our focus is to help agents win listings, and market and sell properties, and the combination with Domain will allow us to continue to provide immense value to our clients.

The connection of our best-in-class tools with Domain’s existing Agent Solutions, and buyer and seller focused portal offering is a perfect match. We are very excited for the future of this business and our relationship.”

The Australian market differs from many real estate markets around the world in that the vendor is ultimately responsible for the marketing costs associated with the sale of their property but agents are in charge of discussing and setting up marketing activities for the listing. Realbase offers services around campaign set-up, tracking, listing media, signs, flyers as well as social media marketing.

Domain will pay A$180m in cash upfront plus a consideration of A$50 million if Realbase hits certain financial targets. In order to raise the money, the ASX-listed portal company is asking shareholders to buy securities at A$3.80 per share with majority shareholder Nine Entertainment agreeing to underwrite the institutional and retail tranches of the raise and in doing so increase its holding in Domain from 59% to 62%.

The fusion of the two companies is expected to bring Domain's coverage of Australian real estate transactions from 35% to 50% and benefit company EBITDA to the tune of up to A$18 million by 2026 thanks to synergies and efficiencies of scale.