San Mateo, Calif., June 2011. Acquisition accelerates Nextag’s growth and global reach in Europe and continues company’s transformation into the ultimate product for online shoppers and value-added partner for merchants.
Nextag, (Nextag.com), a leading comparison shopping website for products and services, today announced the acquisition of Germany’s guenstiger.de GmbH, the leading provider of online comparison shopping services in Europe’s largest market. Guenstiger provides shoppers in six countries with a rich user experience and valuable product information, including reviews, recommendations, and local product availability, to help users make easy and informed purchases.
„Over the past 10 years, Guenstiger has placed a premium on building an outstanding user experience and market leading brand in the German market and other countries. Consequently, Guenstiger has an extremely loyal user base and a reputation as one of the most authoritative and trusted comparison shopping sites in Europe.
By joining forces with Guenstiger, we will quickly accelerate our growth internationally, diversify our traffic sources and deliver a shopping experience that consumers love and merchants value. We are also delighted that Guenstiger’s managing directors, Philipp Hartmann, Aske Magdalinski, and Torsten Schnoor, will join Nextag’s senior team and continue leading Guenstiger after the closing of the transaction. This is a significant victory for Nextag.“
– Jeffrey Katz, Chief Executive Officer of Nextag
„The purchase of Guenstiger by Nextag is a great validation of what we have built in Germany. By combining our talents in brand building and user experience design with Nextag’s unsurpassed skills in traffic generation and monetization, we will create a company that is uniquely well positioned for future growth and expansion.“
– Aske Magdalinski, Managing Director of Guenstiger
This acquisition marks the most significant strategic transaction for Nextag to date. During the past nine months, Nextag has also acquired Wize, Inc., a product review and recommendations site, and NextCoupons.com, a coupon site. These acquisitions are part of a broad growth plan, which also includes strategic hiring, technology development and global expansion. Nextag will purchase guenstiger with a combination of cash and stock. Other transaction details have not been released and the transaction is subject to approval by regulatory agencies. Going forward, guenstiger will maintain its leading brands and continue to be led by its current management team. While guenstiger is expected to run independently, the two companies will work closely to leverage each other’s capabilities going forward.
Nextag is the ultimate resource for online shoppers, offering a fun, reliable and expansive browsing experience for everything from toys to travel plans. Our best-in-class search technology and proven expertise ensure that all of our 30 million+ monthly customers find the products, prices and information they need, when and where they need them. Nextag operates comparison shopping sites in the US (Nextag.com), the UK (Nextag.co.uk), France (Nextag.fr), Germany (Nextag.de), Spain (Nextag.es), Italy (Nextag.it), Australia (Nextag.com.au), Japan (Nextag.co.jp), and Canada (Nextag.ca). Nextag® is headquartered in San Mateo, California with offices in Chicago, London, Tokyo and Gurgaon, India. (www.nextag.com)
Guenstiger.de GmbH is a leading price comparison service for products in the area of telecommunications, computers, consumer electronics household and leisure goods. Consumers use guenstiger’s brands to easily and quickly compare products and prices of thousands of online merchants and offline retail shops throughout Germany. Guenstiger also operates websites in Hungary, Switzerland, Austria, Poland and Russia. (www.guenstiger.de)
ACXIT Capital Partners is a leading international corporate finance and investment advisory firm for mid-market clients and entrepreneurs in Europe and beyond. Since 1998, we offer our clients comprehensive corporate finance advisory services including M&A and capital markets advisory as well as restructuring, debt and strategic advisory. As an independent, privately owned firm we maintain offices in Frankfurt, Berlin, Munich, Zurich, Vienna and Hong Kong as well as strong alliances in China, India and the USA.
To date, we have completed more than 350 transactions with a total deal/financing volume of approx. EUR 17bn. Our clients are corporations, family-owned businesses, entrepreneurs, financial sponsors and family offices. While our home market is in the German speaking region, most clients are international and transactions cross-border. (www.acxit.com)
ACXIT Capital Holding GmbH
Siesmayer Carrée
Siesmayerstraße 21
60323 Frankfurt am Main
Germany
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E-mail: press@acxit.com
Dr. Ingmar Ackermann, Managing Partner
E-mail: Ackermann@acxit.com
