Tamedia acquires Ricardo Group

Zurich, 10 February 2015 – Tamedia is going to acquire the Ricardo Group from the South African Media Company Naspers. The Ricardo Group operates the online marketplace ricardo.ch, the car platform autoricardo.ch, the general classifieds platform olx.ch as well as the Online Shopping Center ricardoshops.ch. With completion of this transaction, the Ricardo Group is going to return to Swiss ownership.

This investment serves to strengthen the leading position of Tamedia in the Swiss Online market. The media group expands its digital portfolio which already encompasses platforms such as Doodle, homegate.ch, jobs.ch, Trendsales or Zattoo, to a total of 13 companies. These companies are active in Switzerland, in various countries in Western Europe, in the USA and in Canada. Christoph Tonini, CEO of Tamedia: «The acquisition of the Ricardo Group is a decisive strategic step forward for us. We want to develop Ricardo's core business through networking effects with own media such as 20minuten.ch and to leverage synergies between the rapidly growing general classified platforms olx.ch and tutti.ch.» Combining autoricardo.ch and car4you.ch will create a strong challenger of Autoscout24.

ricardo.ch was founded in November 1999 in Baar (canton Zug in Switzerland) and was under the ownership of the South African media house Naspers since 2008. In the past 15 years ricardo.ch became a household brand in the Swiss online market. With more than 2.3 million registered users and a total gross merchandise volume of more than 660 million CHF per year, ricardo.ch is the clear market leader in Swiss eCommerce. Christian Kunz, CEO Ricardo Group, sees great potential in the takeover: «As a leading Swiss media company, Tamedia provides the clear strategic focus and unique synergies, that will help us to write the next chapter in the success story of Ricardo.»

The Ricardo Group with its headquarters in Zug (Switzerland) has 190 employees in Switzerland and a development team of 30 people in France. The group's revenue was around 40 CHF mn in 2014. With a highly profitable core business, Ricardo invested significantly into the growth of the new units olx.ch and autoricardo.ch as well as the launch of ricardoshops.ch.

The purchase price for the ricardo.ch AG is 240 CHF mn. The transaction has to be approved by the Swiss Competition Commission.