CoStar Group Acquires Cozy Services Ltd., with Plans to Integrate its Innovative Renter Screening and Rent Payments Solutions into Apartments.com
WASHINGTON, Nov. 8, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- CoStar Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSGP), the leading provider of commercial real estate information, analytics and online marketplaces, announced today its acquisition of Cozy Services, Ltd., a leading provider of online rental solutions, for $68 million. Cozy is considered an industry leader in the online rental property market, with more than 50,000 landlords using the Cozy platform.
Cozy provides a broad spectrum of services to both landlords and tenants, including property listings, rent estimates, rental applications, tenant screening, online rent payments, and expense tracking. There are currently over 120,000 tenants making online payments through the Cozy platform, totalling over $1.4 billion in payments over the past 12 months.
"We believe that if we continue to focus on delivering a fantastic renter experience on Apartments.com, we will continue to be the most heavily trafficked website offering the most valued advertising solutions," said Andrew C. Florance, CoStar Group Founder and Chief Executive Officer. "Cozy's technology makes the renting and payments process simple, secure, and intuitive. When combined with Apartments.com, the 40 million prospective renters that visit our network each month will be able to effortlessly locate, apply, lease and pay for their new rental home completely online."
Currently, CoStar is a leading solution provider in online lease management for commercial real estate through its Real Estate Manager products. Over 200,000 commercial leases for office, retail and industrial clients are managed through the Real Estate Manager platform, which represents approximately $30 billion in lease payments on an annual basis.
Extending this capability to multifamily properties, CoStar expects to fully integrate the Cozy technology into the Apartments.com platform in the first half of 2019. This integrated online rental solution is expected to create significant value and efficiency in the rental process for independent rental owners. These owners operate over 22 million rental units in properties that contain five units or less – representing a significant "long tail" opportunity for CoStar. Based on what property owners are currently willing to pay to fill their properties with a qualified renter, CoStar believes the total addressable market is well over $8 billion. In addition, once integrated with Apartments.com, renters will be able to use the platform to save time and money by leveraging a single rental application and credit check across multiple properties. This, in turn, creates a large population of quality renters for landlords to access for future vacancies.
Gino Zahnd, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Cozy said, "We are excited to be able to bring our landlord and renter services to a larger audience by joining the CoStar team and the Apartments.com network. The combination of CoStar's leadership in multifamily marketing with our integrated solutions for renters and landlords makes for a very exciting future for all of us."
About CoStar Group, Inc.
CoStar Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSGP) is the leading provider of commercial real estate information, analytics and online marketplaces. Founded in 1987, CoStar conducts expansive, ongoing research to produce and maintain the largest and most comprehensive database of commercial real estate information. Our suite of online services enables clients to analyze, interpret and gain unmatched insight on commercial property values, market conditions and current availabilities. LoopNet is the most heavily trafficked commercial real estate marketplace online with approximately 5 million monthly unique visitors per month. Realla is the UK's most comprehensive commercial property digital marketplace. Apartments.com, ApartmentFinder.com, ForRent.com, ApartmentHomeLiving.com, Westside Rentals, AFTER55.com, CorporateHousing.com, ForRentUniversity.com and Apartamentos.com form the premier online apartment resource for renters seeking great apartment homes and provide property managers and owners a proven platform for marketing their properties. CoStar Group's websites attracted an average of approximately 45 million unique monthly visitors in aggregate in the third quarter of 2018. Headquartered in Washington, DC, CoStar maintains offices throughout the U.S. and in Europe and Canada with a staff of over 3,600 worldwide, including the industry's largest professional research organization. For more information, visit www.costargroup.com.
This news release contains "forward-looking statements" including statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements include, but are not limited to, statements about CoStar Group's expectations, plans, objectives, and intentions and other statements including words such as "hope," "anticipate," "may," "believe," "expect," "intend," "will," "should," "plan," "estimate," "predict," "continue" and "potential" or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. Such statements are based upon the current beliefs and expectations of management of CoStar Group and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from the results anticipated in the forward-looking statements. The following factors, among others, could cause or contribute to such differences: the risk that continued focus on the renter experience does not produce the expected results, including resulting in the most heavily trafficked website with the most valued advertising solutions; the risk that the Company is unable to fully integrate the Cozy technology into the Apartments.com platform in the first half of 2019 as expected; the risk that the Company is unable to successfully integrate the online rental solution as expected or to produce the expected results, including creating significant value and efficiency in the rental process for independent rental owners and a simplified online rental process for tenants; the risk that Cozy's business may not be combined successfully with the Apartments.com network or in a timely and cost-efficient manner; the risk that the combination does not produce the expected results or benefits; the risk that business disruption relating to the Cozy acquisition may be greater than expected; and the risk that the combination and integration of Cozy will disrupt CoStar's operations or result in the loss of renters, landlords, owners or key employees. Additional factors that could cause results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements can be found in CoStar's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2017, and Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2018, each of which is filed with the SEC, including in the "Risk Factors" section of those filings, and the Company's other filings with the SEC available at the SEC's website (www.sec.gov). CoStar assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
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SOURCE CoStar Group, Inc.
