Martin Lewis sells MoneySavingExpert website for £87m
Martin Lewis, the television personality and consumer finance expert, has sold his MoneySavingExpert website to aggregator site Moneysupermarket.com for £87m.
Martin Lewis, founder of moneysavingexpert.com
Mr Lewis owns 100pc of the business and is expected to receive £35m in cash and around 22.1m shares in MoneySupermarket.com.
He intends to gift £10m to charity, including £1m which will go to Citizens Advice.
Mr Lewis, who is also a Telegraph columnist, is to retain his position as editor-in-chief of MoneySavingExpert and Moneysupermarket said it would "preserve the editorial independence" of the website, "free of commercial considerations".
The MoneySavingExpert website, which was launched in 2003 generates its revenue through "click throughs" rather than advertising sales.
Mr Lewis's prominent profile and regular appearances on daytime television have helped promote his website to one of the most popular personal finance sites on the internet.
In the year ended October 31 2011, MoneySavingExpert reported revenues of £15.8m, up from £11.4m the previous year, and pre-tax earnings of £12.6m.
Mr Lewis hinted that he may not always work for the consumer website saying of the acquisition: "This is great news for MoneySavingExpert.com and its users, ensuring, with or without me, the site will be around for many years to come, maintaining our ethos of ‘cutting your costs and fighting your corner’.
“MoneySavingExpert.com has become part of people’s daily lives, far bigger than the man who founded it, and now is the right time for it to stand on its own two feet."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/consumertips/9304842/Martin-Lewis-sells-MoneySavingExpert-website-for-87m.html++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Martin Lewis: from Simply Money to loads of moneyFrom spin doctor to money saving multi-millionaire, we look at the rise of Telegraph columnist Martin Lewis.
Martin Lewis no longer needs to exercise his money saving expertise, having sold website for £87m to Moneysupermarket.com.
Just a decade ago Mr Lewis was a little known presenter on a 24-hour satellite television channel Simply Money. The channel was fronted by Angela Rippon, but it was Mr Lewis in his two minute slot on personal finance that caught the industry's eye.
After being picked up by Broadgate – now Broadgate Mainland – the pr company secured Mr Lewis a column in the Sunday Express. Simply Money was not a commercial success and Mr Lewis and the team were dropped to turn the channel into Simply Shopping, but the personal finance reporter retained his column at the Sunday Express.
An ex-colleague from the days of Simply Money said that – although Mr Lewis had only two minutes on the channel – he had so much enthusiasm it was difficult not to notice him.
"Martin articulated himself in a way that people understood which was rare in the financial industry," he said.
Mr Lewis was born in Manchester and grew in Cheshire. After attending the London School of Economics he worked in public relations in the City. He then attended Cardiff University to complete a postgraduate course in journalism.
Cardiff is famed for the number of BBC staff it produces, and Mr Lewis followed suit, work as business editor on Radio 4's Today programme.
It was after this, in 1999, that he joined Simply Money and then, the Sunday Express. A former colleague at the Express explained that Mr Lewis was not as popular as you might expect given his accessible television persona today, but was a "bit of a geek".
"Martin was quite intense, very ambitious and an excellent networker, I am not surprised he has done so well," a former fellow journalist said.
It was while he was at the Express in February 2003 he set up MoneySavingExpert – now the most popular consumer finance website in the UK, with 13 million monthly users and seven million people receiving the Martin's Money Tips email – for just £100.
While he was still at the Express, in 2007, he was rumoured to have been approached by Lloyds TSB who offered him £5m to buy the site. He turned it down on the basis that he "did not trust banks", and would worry about losing editorial control.
Before it was closed down last year, Mr Lewis had a column in the News of the World. He regularly appears on ITV's Daybreak programme, as well as Watchdog and a weekly slot on the Lorraine show.
Mr Lewis has a monthly column in The Daily Telegraph.
He is a best-selling author, titles include The Money Diet and Three Lessons & Thrifty Ways.
Commenting on todays announcement of the sale of his website to Moneysupermarket.com Mr Lewis said that he would be cutting down on the time he spends running the website to concentrate on his media work.
The website is being sold for £87m. Mr Lewis owns 100pc of the business and is expected to receive £35m in cash and around 22.1m shares in MoneySupermarket.com.
He intends to gift £10m to charity, including £1m which will go to Citizens Advice.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/consumertips/9305182/Martin-Lewis-from-Simply-Money-to-loads-of-money.html[ 本文被liuming在2012-06-05 12:12重新編輯 ]
