KKR, Axel Springer could target Scout24, Mobile.de – reports

On 29 May, KKR announced that the firm will make a public offer to shareholders of Axel Springer to acquire a minority share in the coming weeks. The Springer founding family and the company's chairman and CEO, Mathias Döpfner, who together own a stake of 55% in the company, will remain invested following the take-private.

A KKR buyout of minority investors would provide Axel Springer with the flexibility to participate in the ongoing consolidation of the classifieds market, according to Unquote sister publication Mergermarket. Springer's digital classifieds business owns Germany-based real estate portal Immonet and France-based real estate portal SeLoger.com.

Potential targets include Mobile.de, which could be valued at over €2bn, and Scout24, which has a current market capitalisation of €4.8bn. An acquisition of Mobile.de, which has operations in Germany, France and Italy, could help the company expand into the marketplace for cars.

Previous reports also indicate that the group would likely focus on smaller buys. Management has stated it would make organic investments of between €40-50m in its digital classifieds business.

Axel Springer is currently trading at 9.8x EBITDA, a significant discount to other classifieds businesses such as ZPG and Scout24, which have enterprise values of more than 20x EBITDA. Axel Springer's classifieds business represents 66% of group EBITDA.

KKR declined to comment.

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• Topics
• PIPEs
• DACH
• Consumer
• Germany
• KKR
• Minority investing