Press Release

Distilled Media Group and Schibsted Media Group Join Forces in Online Classified Advertising in Ireland.

Daft.ie, DoneDeal.ie and Adverts.ie will be under common ownership.

Distilled Media Group and Schibsted Media Group, the Oslo listed international media group, today (Wednesday July 8th) announced the establishment of a combined business, Digital Media Ventures Ltd., which will own the three highly successful online classified advertising sites DoneDeal.ie Daft.ie and Adverts.ie.

Under this new ownership structure, each of the three operations will continue to operate independently and will be run by existing management and staff. DoneDeal.ie will continue to operate from its base in Wexford while Adverts.ie and Daft.ie will continue to be located in Dublin.

Schibsted Media Group’s specialist classified media division has a network of online classified sites in 30 countries world wide. Schibsted acquired DoneDeal.ie from Wexford based founders, Fred and Geraldine Karlsson.

Daft.ie and Adverts.ie were established by entrepreneurs Eamonn and Brian Fallon. Separately, they operate several well established online sites including Boards.ie and thejournal.ie. Neither Boards.ie nor thejournal.ie are part of this transaction and will continue to operate under current ownership.

Distilled Media and Schibsted will each own 50% of the shareholding in Digital Media Ventures Ltd. The combined entity had revenues in the first six months of 2015 of €9.4 million.

Private equity firm, Tiger Global’s minority shareholding in Distilled Media has been bought out, as part of this transaction.

Eamonn Fallon will be the CEO of Digital Media Ventures Ltd.

“Joining forces with Schibsted in this venture creates an online advertising business of scale in Ireland with the capability of competing head to head with the US internet majors” said Eamonn Fallon. “Our combined reach is currently over 650,000 people per day. We look forward to working together with Schibsted, benefitting from their exceptional international experience and insights, to develop and grow this business in Ireland.”

“We are delighted to combine with Distilled Media and the Fallon brothers in Ireland”, said Rolv Erik Ryssdal, CEO of Schibsted. “Through this new set up we will expand our reach in this exciting market to real estate and we aim to further improve our position in the generalist and car markets. When the leading online classified sites in Ireland are joining forces, we believe we will be able to create even better services for buyers and sellers. We have several times experienced the significant value creation that can be made through in-market consolidation.”

Ends.

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Editors notes:

Schibsted Media Group: www.schibsted.com

Founded as a small publishing house by Charles Schibsted in 1839, the Schibsted Media Group today employs 6,800 people in 30 countries. Its key businesses are online classifieds and digital media houses. Over 200 million people around the globe interact with Schibsted companies every day.

Daft.ie: www.daft.ie

Daft.ie is Ireland’s leading property portal. Founded in 1997 by brothers Eamonn and Brian Fallon, it has revolutionised how consumers in Ireland find property. Nine out of ten properties for sale in Ireland are advertised on Daft.ie, and it attracts over 2 million unique visitors and 200 million page impressions per month across multiple channels.

Adverts.ie www.adverts.ie

Adverts.ie is an online marketplace for buying and selling goods. It was originally launched in 2006 by community website Boards.ie. Over 100,000 people log in every day to earn money from selling items they do not use, with the majority of this trade happening through the iPhone or Android smartphone apps.

DoneDeal.ie www.donedeal.ie

DoneDeal.ie is Ireland’s largest classified website. It was originally founded in June 2005 by Fred and Geraldine Karlsson. The idea came from the Swedish-Irish couple’s experience of selling furniture in Sweden, where good second-hand furniture can be easily bought and sold locally online. When they came to Ireland, no such service existed.