ZPG Ltd. is a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

real estate company based in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, owned by Silver Lake Partners. Its brands include the property website Zoopla, price comparison service

Uswitch Uswitch Limited is a UK-based price comparison service and switching website founded in 2000. The site allows consumers to compare prices for a range of energy, personal finance, insurance, and communications services. History uSwitch.com w ...

, finance comparison website Money.co.uk, personal finance content site Bankrate UK, PrimeLocation and Hometrack. Alongside these sites, Zoopla also owns several industry brands providing services to estate agents. These include Jupix, Alto, Expert Agent and Ravensworth. ZPG PLC was listed on the

London Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St P ...

until it was acquired by Silver Lake Partners in July 2018.

History

The company was originally founded as Zoopla in 2007 by Alex Chesterman and Simon Kain. Chesterman and Kain also founded ScreenSelect (later

LoveFilm LoveFilm was a United Kingdom–based provider of DVD-by-mail and streaming video on demand in the United Kingdom, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Germany. Acquired by Amazon.com in 2011, the service had reached 2 million subscribers. It claimed ...

). The Zoopla website was launched in January 2008. Zoopla was backed by

Accomplice Under the English common law, an accomplice is a person who actively participates in the commission of a crime, even if they take no part in the actual criminal offense. For example, in a bank robbery, the person who points the gun at the teller ...

, Octopus Ventures and other investors. In July 2009, Zoopla acquired property website Thinkproperty.com from the

Guardian Media Group Guardian Media Group plc (GMG) is a British-based mass media company owning various media operations including ''The Guardian'' and ''The Observer''. The group is wholly owned by the Scott Trust Limited, which exists to secure the financial and e ...

. In August 2009, Zoopla acquired the PropertyFinder Group, consisting of the websites Propertyfinder.com, Hotproperty.co.uk and

UK Property Shop UK Property Shop Ltd – trading as UK Property Shop – publishes an online directory of UK Estate Agents and Letting Agents known as The National Directory of Estate Agents. The Company UK Property Shop Ltd was registered as a limited compa ...

, from prior owners the REA Group and News International for an undisclosed sum. These businesses had combined annual revenues of £7m. In January 2011 Zoopla acquired the historic database of UK house prices HousePrices.co.uk. In October 2011, Zoopla and Digital Property Group, the subsidiary of A&N Media, operating property websites Primelocation.com,

Globrix Globrix was a UK real estate search engine that was launched in January 2008. It was launched as a joint venture with News International, publishers of ''The Sunday Times'', '' The Sun'', ''The Times'', ''The News of the World'' and ''Thelondonpape ...

.com and FindaProperty.com, merged their respective businesses. In May 2012, Zoopla acquired property information website UpMyStreet.com. In June 2012, Zoopla and its constabularies formed Zoopla Property Group Ltd. In December 2012, Zoopla acquired property information website Globrix.com. In Spring 2013, Stephen Morana, formerly of

Betfair Betfair is a British gambling company which operates the world's largest online betting exchange. Its product offering also includes sports betting, online casino, online poker, and online bingo. Founded in 2000, the business is split int ...

Group Plc, was appointed new Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Zoopla's biggest shareholder, the

Daily Mail and General Trust Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) is a British multinational media company, the owner of the '' Daily Mail'' and several other titles. The 4th Viscount Rothermere is the chairman and controlling shareholder of the company. The head office i ...

floated Zoopla on the

in June 2014. In June 2015, Zoopla bought the price comparison website

. In February 2017 the company changed its name to ZPG plc. In September 2017, Zoopla purchased the financial services comparison website Money.co.uk for £140 million. In May 2018, US private equity firm Silver Lake Partners made a $2.2 Billion bid for the company. The transaction completed in July 2018.

Operations

ZPG owns a searchable directory of UK residential properties. It uses various open sources including the Royal Mail's postcode database, the

HM Land Registry His Majesty's Land Registry is a non-ministerial department of His Majesty's Government, created in 1862 to register the ownership of land and property in England and Wales. It reports to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strateg ...

's data on property transactions in England and Wales, and

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

maps. Based on this data, Zoopla has developed an

automated valuation model An Automated Valuation Model (AVM) is a system for the valuation of real estate that provides a value of a specified property at a specified date, using mathematical modelling techniques in an automated manner. AVMs are Statistical Valuation Metho ...

, powered by Hometrack, that provides a computed valuation estimate for UK residential properties. Zoopla also allows users to claim their home or set a TemptMe price, similar to US website

Zillow Zillow Group, Inc., or simply Zillow, is an American tech real-estate marketplace company that was founded in 2006, and was created by Rich Barton and Lloyd Frink, former Microsoft executives and founders of Microsoft spin-off Expedia; Spencer ...

. Its analogue for valuing the Internet properties is DNPric.es. The accuracy of Zoopla's computed valuations is disputed.

Sponsorship

ZPG sponsored

West Bromwich Albion Football Club West Bromwich Albion Football Club () is an English professional Association football, football club based in West Bromwich, West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. They compete in the EFL Championship, the second tier of English foo ...

from 2012 to January 2014. Founder Alex Chesterman, who is

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

, decided to remove support of the club after an allegedly anti-Semitic gesture from player

Nicolas Anelka Nicolas Sébastien Anelka (; born 14 March 1979) is a French professional football manager and retired player who played as a forward. As a player, he regularly featured in his country's national team, often scoring at crucial moments. Known f ...

made headlines.

References

External links

ZPG website

Zoopla
{{Online real estate databases Real estate companies established in 2007 British real estate websites Real estate valuation Property services companies of the United Kingdom British companies established in 2007 Online real estate databases Internet properties established in 2007 Privately held companies of the United Kingdom Silver Lake (investment firm) companies

History

Operations

Sponsorship

See also

References

External links