Costar has repeated the domain of an Australian real estate classification company with rumors of $2.7 billion. The purchase will match your toes with News Corp, which owns Rea Group, Australia’s largest classified company.
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Virginia-based commercial Behemoth Costar Group is looking to strengthen its international influence as the company bids to buy the Australian real estate classification company domain with rumors of $2.7 billion .
The domain is next to the REA group owned by News Corp, Australia’s second largest real estate classification site and has dominated the market for 20 years. According to a report by Reuters and the Sydney Morning Herald, CoStar began purchasing domain shares at an AUD of 4.20 per share last Thursday.
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Costar’s stock rush, which was carried out with the help of Macquarie Capital, gave them 19% stake in the domain, the report says.
Domain’s parent company, Nine Entertainment, began the year with a massive restructuring of the company’s executive committee and department to save 100 million over the next two years. Nine cut its division into streaming and broadcasting, publishing and markets. The latter includes Drive, a domain and car content platform.
“Our operating model reset will help accelerate the ongoing strategic transformation at 9 by improving how different parts of the business work,” said the 9th acting CEO. Matt Stanton spoke to Variety in January. “Our new approach ensures that the company is fit in the future to manage a challenging external environment and provide it sustainably to consumers, partners, shareholders and people.”
Nine Entertainment and Domains declined to comment on the deal. Meanwhile, a Costar spokesperson said the company had not commented on the speculation.
“Costar Group will continue to evaluate M&A opportunities for a wide range of companies to maximize shareholder value,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “We have not commented on market rumors or speculation.”
Domain News continues its ongoing battle between Costar, News Corp and Realtor.com. This began in 2021 when Costar purchased Residential Portal Homes.com in 2021. In 2024, the company spent $1 billion on marketing the portal.
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