Yellow Media has announced that it is selling one of its vertical publishing businesses Trader Corporation for $745 million in cash by The transaction has fully committed financing, consisting of equity provided by Apax Partners and financing commitments provided by RBC Capital Markets.
Trader was founded in June 2006 with Classified Media Holdings and Trader Media which Yellow Media acquired shortly after and has approximately 160 publications and websites which covers four verticals including automotive, real estate, general merchandise and employment.
“This divestiture is attractive for our shareholders and will allow us to deploy capital in our core business, helping accelerate our digital transformation while further strengthening our capital structure,” said Marc P. Tellier, President and Chief Executive Officer of Yellow Media Inc. “As Canada’s number one Internet company, we want to focus our efforts on the acceleration of our digital transformation via our Yellow Pages 360 Solution.”
Trader will continue to own and operate leading Canadian automotive and generalist online properties including AutoTrader.ca, Autos.ca, AutoHebdo.net, and Buysell.com, as well as 74 related publications. In addition, Trader will retain its interest of approximately 30% in Dealer.com, the leading US digital solutions provider to the automotive dealer segment.