SPH buys 60% of real estate analytics firm for S$30m

SINGAPORE Press Holdings (SPH) has acquired a 60 per cent stake in privately-held CoSine Holdings, the holding company for StreetSine Technology Group which consists of StreetSine Singapore, StreetSine Hong Kong and digital platforms Singapore Real Estate Exchange (SRX) and Hong Kong Real Estate Exchange (HRX), for S$30 million.

StreetSine Singapore will integrate SRX and STProperty into one digital platform to offer consumers and real estate professionals end-to-end real-time information, property applications and other services for transacting real estate in Singapore.

SPH purchased the stake from Sam Baker and Jeremy Lee, the founders of CoSine Holdings, and several other minority shareholders under an agreement inked on Oct 31.

Mr Baker and Mr Lee will maintain a combined stake of 40 per cent in StreetSine and will continue to run the company as chief executive officer and chief technology officer, respectively.

SPH and CoSine's founders have also entered into a put and call option agreement, whereby SPH has the right to require the founders to sell their 40 per cent interest in CoSine and the founders have the right to require SPH to purchase the option shares subject to the conditions of the agreement.

"StreetSine has set the standards for providing users with real-time pricing information and easy computation like X-ValueTM, the market's standard for computer-generated real-time property appraisals," said Leslie Fong, senior executive vice-president of SPH's Marketing Division.

"STProperty has all the up-to-date and reliable listings any consumer could possibly want. By combining SRX and STProperty, we offer consumers and real estate professionals a one-stop shop for all the information they will need for all property-related transactions. That's win-win-win," he added.

The transaction is not expected to have a material effect on SPH's net tangible assets or earnings per share for the financial year ending August 2015.

The acquisition was done through SPH's wholly-owned SPH Interactive.