Insurance giant Admiral has agreed to sell its comparison website business which includes Confused.com to the owner of rival Uswitch in a deal worth around £508 million.
It told investors on Tuesday that it has agreed to sell the Penguin Portals arm, which also includes Rastreator.com, LeLynx.fr, the group's technology operation and its 50% share in Preminen Price Comparison Holding to ZPG (Zoopla Property Group).
ZPG has said it will control the acquired businesses through its comparison site division, RVU.
Spanish insurance giant MAPFRE said it will also sell its stake in Rastreator.com and Preminen as part of the deal.
READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon ‘needs to recognise’ damage to Scottish Government relationship with business
The total deal will be worth £508 million, although Admiral has said it expects to secure around £450 million in proceeds after accounting for minority interests and transaction costs.
Admiral said it expects to return a majority of the funds to shareholders, although some cash will be kept to "support investment in new business development over the coming years".
The deal is subject to regulatory approvals and is expected to close in the first half of 2021.
David Stevens, chief executive of Admiral Group, said: "The purchase of the UK and European comparison businesses by RVU offers a positive outcome for our customers and our employees, and also provides good value for our shareholders.
"The combination of Penguin's strengths, notably in insurance comparison across much of Europe, with RVU's strengths beyond insurance and experience in growth through acquisition provides a solid foundation for the combined businesses to grow and prosper.
"Admiral will continue to focus on what Admiral has consistently done well, namely designing and underwriting good value mass market financial service products."
Tariq Syed, chief executive of RVU, said: "Penguin Portals offers an exciting opportunity for us to expand our comparison brand portfolio and geographic reach.
"With a shared mission to empower consumers to make more confident decisions, I'm incredibly excited to see the opportunities that we can create together.
Culturally we are also very aligned - we believe in winning in the right way and keeping consumers at the heart of everything we do.
"With its strong brand heritage and focus on insurance, Confused.com perfectly complements Uswitch's expertise in the home services category."
First look: Johnnie Walker Princes Street interiors unveiled by Diageo
Drinks giant Diageo has published design renderings revealing what its Johnnie Walker Princes Street visitor experience in Edinburgh, due to open next summer, will look like.
Sign up
You can now have the bulletin and the top business news stories sent direct to your email inbox twice-daily, and Business Week for the weekly round-up on Sunday:
https://www.heraldscotland.com/my/account/register/
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here