Martin Lewis sells MoneySavingExpert site for £87m
Published Jun 1 2012, 11:08 BST | By Andrew Laughlin
Martin Lewis, the TV personality and consumer finance expert, has agreed a deal to sell his Money Saving Expert website to aggregator MoneySupermarket.com in an £87m deal.Lewis, who has appeared on various daytime financial programmes for the BBC and ITV, owns all the shares in MoneySavingExpert.com and is expected to receive around £35m in cash plus 22.1m in shares in MoneySupermarket.com.
Lewis intends to donate £10m to charity from the deal, including £1m going to Citizens Advice and the remaining £9 million donated to a Charities Aid Foundation trust.
MoneySavingExpert.com had approximately 39 million unique visitors and approximately 277 million page impressions in the year ending October 31, 2011.
Over the 12-month period, the website reported revenues of £15.8m, up from £11.4m in the previous year. Its pre-tax earnings were £12.6m.
Final completion of the deal is subject to clearance from the Office of Fair Trading, which is expected to take a few months. It also requires shareholder approval.
Lewis will continue as editor-in-chief of the website, in "sole charge" of the content.
"This is great news for MoneySavingExpert.com and its users, ensuring, with or without me, the site will be around for many years to come, maintaining our ethos of 'cutting your costs and fighting your corner'," said Lewis, hinting that his future lies away from the site.
"MoneySavingExpert.com has become part of people's daily lives, far bigger than the man who founded it, and now is the right time for it to stand on its own two feet.
"I chose MoneySupermarket to work with as I know and trust them. They understand the site, as they've shown by agreeing the Editorial Code, which ensures our content can proudly remain editorially independent and free from commercial considerations."
MoneySupermaket chief executive Peter Plumb added: "We've worked closely together for years with the common goal of helping customers save money.
"By joining forces we can get more people to save more money. We'll help MoneySavingExpert reach a wider audience and it will broaden the range of advice and tools we offer, encouraging even more people to take action, tap into the benefits of the internet to find a better deal and make the most of their money."
Someone who actually deserves this. Well done Martin!
June 5th 2012 at 8:45pm
Yes, I'm completely jealous! But good on Martin! He saw an opportunity, grabbed it and a few years down the line it made him EXTREMELY rich. I've never liked the bloke, but on this one - Well done sir! ~raises glass~
June 5th 2012 at 10:15am
I doubt if one single person here would, if offered this silly amount of money, turn it down.......in real life!
I know I bloomin well wouldn't.
June 3rd 2012 at 6:13pm(+1 like)
Brilliant. Smart move. As for his reasoning for giving to charity, who cares if its legit? A couple of charitys are now much better off. And him being a sell out? So. Thats business.
June 3rd 2012 at 10:28am
hmm, getting javaviod when trying to reply to Bradley BArlows post, so I'll do it here.
Yes he has given £10 million to charity, but if you really believe that is anyuthng more than a propeganda move (probably part of the deal for the sale) to make him look good rather than a real gesture, well that's up to you of course.
As I said in my other post, he's entire site is built off other forum members free contributions that he has often copied as his own knowledge/advice.
You might call that honest and reaping the benefits of the hardwork he has put in.
I wouldn't
June 1st 2012 at 2:00pm(+1 like)
So when you go to university and learn things, then go to work and apply those things that you now 'know', that's not the same?
June 1st 2012 at 8:12pm
Tom I think your analogy is a bit off since that's the purpose of a university which in the whole is paid for by students.
He has a website forum where he takes people's problems and uses these to gain more money. It would be like me opening a bar in hollywood and giving free drinks to all the script writers and listening to them talk of ideas for shows which I then turn into scripts and sell but then the studio comes along and says it will offer me a load of money for my bar as they want to run it.
June 2nd 2012 at 5:55pm