Advertising, Baltic, Estonia, Internet, Lithuania, Markets and Companies

The CEO of AS Eesti Meedia, Sven Nuutmann, confirmed to LETA/BNS on Friday that Eesti Meedia and the owner of City24,24 M2 OU, signed a letter of intent on Thursday aimed at concluding a purchase and sale agreement concerning the portals. 

"Reaching a deal depends on the success of the negotiations of course. Eesti Meedia has made an indicative offer and we expect to move forward fast to reach a deal still before autumn sets in," Nuutmann told BNS, but declined to reveal the potential price.

Nuutmann said that Eesti Meedia, which already owns KV.ee, the biggest real estate portal in Estonia, will observe in the transaction all requirements arising from the law, including the competition clause. "When the purchase transaction is carried out, both KV.ee and City24.ee, which have quite different technical platforms, will go on acting on the market side by side," Nuutmann said.  

He added that, by way of comparison, there is only one big car classifieds portal on the Estonian market, Auto24.ee, and that fact has never undermined the competition situation on the market.

Ilmar Kompus, manager of the company that owns City24.ee, said the negotiations are still in the early stages and it is still too early to speak about a possible deal. There have been other parties interested in buying City24, Kompus said, and did not rule out the possibility that negotiations would be started with those parties as well.

"City24 holds half the market in Estonia and Latvia alike," Kompus said, adding that the portal has been doing well in recent years.