Apax buys 17% stake in EQT's Idealista for €250m

The deal values the company at around €1.47bn.

The transaction has been carried out just a few months months after Apax sold its majority stake in the business to EQT, in a deal valuing Idealista at €1.32bn.

With the fresh capital, Idealista plans to boost its growth and further expand its marketplace across Europe.

Previous funding
Apax bought Idealista from Bonsai Venture Capital, Kutxabank and US firm Tiger Global in 2015. The deal saw the GP acquire 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.

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.

EQT acquired the company from Apax for €1.3bn in September 2020, investing via EQT IX. The deal gave the company a valuation of around 26x its EBITDA of approximately €50m. The GP bought a majority stake, while the company management team, led by CEO Jesús Encinar, reinvested significantly into the business and retained a minority holding.

Following this deal, EQT acquired Italian online real estate marketplace Casa.it from Oakley Capital. The company was subsequently combined with Idealista's Italian operations.

Oakley Capital invested €175m in exchange for a 12% stake in Idealista in January 2021. The GP deployed capital from Oakley Capital IV, which held a final close on €1.46bn in July 2019, surpassing its €1.2bn target.

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 of almost €50m from revenues of around €100m in 2019.

People
Apax Partners – Tom Hall (partner).
Idealista – Jesus Encinar (co-founder, CEO).

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• Topics
• Expansion
• Southern Europe
• Consumer
• Apax Partners
• EQT
• Oakley Capital
• Spain