A campaigning personal finance journalist is set to scoop £87 million after clinching a deal to sell his popular website today.
Martin Lewis said he had agreed to sell MoneySavingExpert.com, the site he founded almost a decade ago after leaving the BBC, to MoneySupermarket, the price comparison business.
Mr Lewis, 39, said he will give £10 million of the money to charity, including £1 million to Citizens Advice. The organisation “desperately needs it for debt advice as, shamefully, its public funding has been cut”, he said. MSE staff will also share in the proceeds.
Mr Lewis, the sole shareholder in MSE, will receive about £60 million in cash and shares upfront. He stands to receive a further £27 million over the next three years, depending on meeting certain performance targets.
Under the terms of the deal, Mr Lewis will be locked in for three years, during which he will continue to oversee MSE as editor-in-chief. Mr Lewis said: “After that, the door is open for me to carry on, and I hope to do so, though perhaps with fewer hours than now, so I can spend more time on my media work and other projects that I’m passionate about.”
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MoneySupermarket has agreed to preserve MSE’s editorial independence as a condition of the deal, which will allow the site to continue campaigning to get better deals for consumers. “Our primary job is to continue to ensure we provide the best information to help consumers, based on journalistic research, and this editorial line will stay independent of any commercial objectives or influence,” he said.
Mr Lewis founded MSE in 2003 to provide advice to consumers on matters such as credit cards, travel deals and insurance. It won a dedicated following on the back of campaigns for fairer bank charges and refunds of payment protection insurance, and from Mr Lewis’s frequent radio and television appearances.
In the latest full year, the site had 39 million unique visitors, generated revenues of £15.7 million and employed 42 full-time staff.
Moneysupermarket was the site’s biggest provider, contributing 60 per cent of MSE’s revenues through links to financial product providers. Mark Williamson, an analyst at Peel Hunt, said the acquisition would produce additional traffic for Moneysupermarket and help to protect its business against the encroachment of Google into the price comparison market.
Peter Plumb, chief executive of MoneySupermarket, said: “We’ve worked closely together for years with the common goal of helping customers save money. By joining forces we can get more people to save more money. We’ll help MoneySavingExpert.com reach a wider audience.”
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Mr Lewis said the deal would allow MSE access to better technology and ensure that the site continues even if he moves on to other projects.
The acquisition will be funded out of existing cash and a £20 million bank loan. It is conditional on approval by Moneysupermarket shareholders and the Office of Fair Trading.
Shares in Moneysupermarket were up 1 per cent at 117p in early trading.