CoStar Acquires Emporis In Bid To Take Commercial Real Estate Data Empire Global
CoStar Group has made its second acquisition of the pandemic, this time buying a European commercial real estate data firm.
The D.C.-based commercial real estate data giant announced Tuesday it acquired Emporis, a Hamburg, Germany-based firm with data on 700,000 buildings across 100 countries.
It didn't disclose the acquisition price, but CoStar CEO Andy Florance on the firm's Q3 earnings call Tuesday evening described it as a minor deal.
“It’s in line with the coffee budget, and lately we haven’t been using much coffee here at CoStar," Florance said in response to an analyst's question about the purchase price. "It’s a relatively small purchase price, small revenue stream.”
Florance added that the company plans to integrate Emporis' data into its platform, and the acquisition is part of its larger efforts to expand its global reach.
"Our thought is our clients that are subscribed to national data in their countries will be able to see properties around the world, and the addition of Emporis allows us to crank up what we’re going to see when we integrate that in," Florance said. "As soon as we finish that, someone in New York will be able to see thousands of properties in Sao Paolo or in Buenos Aires or in Tokyo.”
The announcement comes after CoStar in June closed its $190M acquisition of Ten-X, an online real estate auction platform. Florance said in May the company was exploring a range of acquisition opportunities, and he told Bisnow last year he sees recessions as attractive times to buy.
The company was active on the acquisition front before the recession, too. It acquired online student housing marketplace Off Campus Partners in June 2019. It bought hotel research firm STR for $450M in October 2019. And in February it agreed to buy RentPath out of bankruptcy for $588M.
CoStar reported $426M in revenue and $58M of net income for the third quarter, compared to $353M in revenue and $79M in net income during Q3 2019. It projected its revenue will rise in Q4 to between $429M and $435M.
The company's stock price has more than fully recovered since its March low, and at $828/share it is now well above where it began the year at $620/share. CoStar's market capitalization was over $32B after markets closed Tuesday.
“Our business delivered outstanding results in the third quarter, clearly demonstrating the mission critical nature of our information products and the strong countercyclical performance of our marketplaces," Florance said in the firm's earnings release.
