Fintech lender LendingTree entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Value Holding, the parent company of personal finance website ValuePenguin.com, for a total consideration of $105 million paid in cash.
“We are thrilled to add ValuePenguin’s talented team and expertise to our portfolio,” said Doug Lebda, founder and CEO of LendingTree. “Our recent QuoteWizard acquisition was our first step toward leadership in insurance customer acquisition. Adding ValuePenguin’s high-quality content and SEO capability to QuoteWizard’s proprietary technology and carrier network will set us apart and enable us to provide immense value to carriers and agents. Both businesses will benefit from LendingTree’s strong brand and extensive marketing capabilities. We are in a great position to achieve further scale in the insurance space as well as the broader financial services industry.”
Jonathan Wu, co-founder and CEO of ValuePenguin, added, “The combination of ValuePenguin’s high-quality organic traffic with LendingTree’s sophisticated marketing platform and direct carrier relationships will significantly accelerate both of our businesses beyond what we could do independently. We are delighted to join the LendingTree team and are excited about what our two companies will be able to do together in the coming years.”
The acquisition is expected to close in the first quarter of 2019, subject to customary closing conditions. LendingTree intends to fund the acquisition through cash on hand and by drawing on its existing credit agreement.
For the nine months ended September 30, 2018, ValuePenguin generated approximately $12.5 million in revenue and $9 million in adjusted EBITDA. LendingTree expects the acquisition to be immediately accretive to 2019 adjusted earnings per share.
Investment bank Vista Point Advisors acted as the exclusive financial advisor to ValuePenguin on the transaction.
ValuePenguin offers consumers objective analysis on a variety of financial topics from insurance to credit cards and provides high-quality resources to help consumers understand the topics they’re interested in.
