EQT buys Idealista from Apax for €1.3bn

The deal gives the company a valuation of around 26x its EBITDA of approximately €50m, a source close to the company told Unquote.

With this exit Apax reaped a return of more than 40% IRR, Unquote understands.

EQT bought a majority stake in Idealista, while the company management team, led by CEO Jesús Encinar, reinvested significantly into the business and retained a minority holding. Encinar and his team will continue to lead the company.

The GP invested in the company via EQT IX, which was launched in January 2020 with a €14.75bn target and a €15bn hard-cap. The fund is expected to hold a final close by October 2020. LPs in the fund include Cathay Life Insurance and Chicago Teachers' Pension Fund, among others.

The fund targets primarily majority equity investments in companies with strong market positions and cashflows, deploying equity tickets of €150m-1bn. The firm focuses mostly on northern Europe, targeting primarily the healthcare, telecoms, media, technology and services sectors.

Idealista will be the second company in the fund's portfolio, in addition to Swedish enterprise software provider IFS. EQT sold a minority stake in IFS to US private equity firm TA Associates in July 2020, in a deal valuing the company in excess of €3bn. As part of the deal, the majority stake in IFS owned by EQT was transferred from EQT VII to its successor funds EQT VIII and EQT IX.

Following the acquisition of Idealista, EQT IX is expected to be 10-15% invested, based on its target fund size.

EQT intends to support Idealista's growth, strengthen its market position, accelerate its penetration in its core markets and further expand its product offering by adding new services for real estate agents to its portfolio.

The sale ends a five-year holding period for Apax, which acquired Idealista from Bonsai Venture Capital, Kutxabank and US firm Tiger Global. Apax bought a majority stake, while the company's founders retained a significant minority.

Apax bought the company for an entry multiple of 10-15x its EBITDA in 2015, in a deal that valued the business at around €235m, a source familiar with the company told Unquote.

Apax put the company on the market at the end of 2019. The sale process attracted the interest of several private equity firms, including KKR, Blackstone and Silverlake, according to press reports. Apax also explored the possibility of an IPO, but subsequently abandoned the idea in favour of a sale.

Under Apax's ownership, Idealista increased its website's traffic by more than four times and recorded a three-fold rise in revenues since 2015. The GP deployed extensive investment in the company's technology and operational divisions, increased its staff from 300 employees to more than 750, and expanded its customer base across southern Europe.

Company
Founded in 2000 and headquartered in Madrid, Idealista is an online real estate platform that provides a digital marketplace for home buyers and sellers across Spain, Portugal and Italy.

Its platform offers a diversified portfolio of digital services, including CRM tools, data analytics and online mortgage brokerage.

Idealista supports around 40,000 real estate agents and counts 38 million unique monthly visitors across southern Europe. The company generated EBITDA just under €50m from revenues of around €100m in 2019.

People
Apax Partners – Tom Hall (partner).
EQT – Bert Janssens (partner, global co-head TMT); Carlos Santana (managing director, head of EQT Private Equity in Spain).
Idealista – Jesus Encinar (co-founder, CEO).

Advisers
Equity – PwC (financial due diligence); Allen & Overy (legal); Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer (legal).
Company – Evercore (corporate finance); Simpson Thacher & Bartlett (legal).

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