Binder Grosswang has advises the Scout24 Group on its acquisition of Austrian Immobilien.net real estate portal from sellers Markus and Alexander Ertler.
The Scout24 Group, based in Germany, has been active in Austrian for the past two years with the www.immobilienscout24.at website. Thus, with this acquisition, Scout24 Group combines two of the leading online portals into one, which will Binger Groesswang says will be "the largest and fastest growing real estate platform in Austria in terms of the number of customers." At the moment, the two platforms report approximately 1.6 million visits per month.
The purchase price was not disclosed, but Binder Groesswang described the acquisition as "one of the largest acquisitions in the history of Austrian online industry." The closing took place on 28 May 2014.
Binder Groesswang Partner Thomas Schirmer led on the deal, with assistance by Partner Michael Lind and Markus Uitz, Attorney Hermann Schneeweiss, and Associate Mark Reinfeld, along with lawyers Ivo Rungg, Hellmut Buchroithner, John Barbist, Angelika Pallwein-Prettner, and John Bammer .
The Ertlers were advised by Dorda, with a team led by Partner Jurgen Kittel.
Editorial Update (June 3, 2014): Dorda has announced that Partner Jurgen Kittel led the firm's team advising the Ertler brothers in the sale of all their shares to ImmobilienScout24. In a firm press release, Kittel stated that "our clients acted as true pioneers when they set up Immobilien.net twenty years ago. It was the first real-estate platform on the German-language internet. The success story is now continuing and we are thrilled to have assisted our clients with this interesting transaction.”
