CarAdvice Acquires CarBuddy
CarAdvice has acquired the carbuddy.com.au business from Jumbuck Entertainment.
Founded in 2006, CarAdvice.com.au is a leading Australian motoring editorial site offering thousands of new car reviews and news. In May this year, the site was visited a total of 772,000 times(1) by over 500,000 visitors(1).
The acquisition of CarBuddy immediately adds 38,000 new and used car listings to CarAdvice’s existing free classifieds offering launched earlier this year. In addition, the Carbuddy.com.au site had 195,000 visits(1) in May, strengthening the CarAdvice groups market presence to a combined 967,000 visits.
Commenting on the acquisition, CarAdvice Chief Executive Officer David Holmes said, “The acquisition of CarBuddy is a natural extension for our business. CarBuddy fast tracks our free classifieds model, improves our offering for dealers and private sellers, and compliments our strong editorial position.”
“In the United States the main competition to the top paid automotive site, AutoTrader, now comes from free alternatives such as Craigslist and Kijiji. We believe this trend will also occur in Australia and CarBuddy.com.au has the potential to become an alternative to top paid auto sites, Carsales.com.au, Drive.com.au and Carsguide.com.au” said Holmes.
CarAdvice has also strengthened its management team with the announcement last week that ex-CarSales General Manager of Media Sales, Justin Whelan, has joined the company as GM Sales and Marketing.
Classified Ad Ventures Acquires Hippo Jobs
Simon Baker, the CEO of Classified Ad Ventures, today announced the acquisition of Hippo Jobs (hippojobs.com.au), the leading youth jobs classified site in Australia.
Hippo Jobs targets the Australian 15 – 24-year-old demographic (often-called Gen Y) for part-time and casual jobs nationally. Hippo Jobs has a vision of connecting employers looking for young people to work for them with the many young people searching for part-time and casual work that suits their lifestyles.
Over 100,000 Gen Y’s have registered with Hippo Jobs. Hippo converts this personal information into a detailed resume that employers can access or have emailed to them as candidates apply for positions. Major employers such as Coles, Kmart, David Jones and Salesforce all use Hippo to help ensure they get find the right candidate for the role. Hippo Jobs also integrates with many third party HR and ad posting systems for employer convenience.
Simon Baker said, “We believe that niche jobs sites are a growing opportunity. Managers have less time than ever to troll through the hundreds of irrelevant CVs they often receive from the general jobs sites. Our investment in ArtsHub shows that by having a targeted audience, we are able to deliver a small number of quality candidates that meet the advertisers’ requirements.
“Hippo has successfully matched the youth of Australia with employers of choice for the past 2 years. As part of the Classified Ad Ventures, advertisers and candidates using Hippo Jobs will benefit from a combined 40 years of online classified experience and receive better results.”
Hippo Jobs will report into Chris Vulovic, the head of Classified Ad Ventures’ Innovation team. James Masini, General Manager and founder of Hippo Jobs, will continue to be involved in the company.
Classified Ad Ventures Takes Equity Stake in IPGA Ltd
Classified Ad Ventures, through its investment vehicle CAV Investment Holdings Pty Ltd, announced today that it has subscribed to a placement of 5,000,000 shares in IPGA Ltd (ASX:IPP). This represents just over 4% of the enlarged capital of IPGA, owner of Asia’s No. 1 network of property websites. The placement, at a price of $0.10 per share, represents the first direct investment received by IPGA since its listing on the ASX in September 2007 and is a strong endorsement of the potential of IPGA’s network of market leading property portals in Asia.
