CoStar Group announced it plans to acquire Ten-X for $190 million in cash.
Ten-X was launched in 2009 with the goal of providing a digital transaction platform for effectively liquidating the large volume of distressed commercial real estate assets that came on the market during the Great Recession.
Ten-X has since become a leading platform for digital commercial real estate transactions with close to $24 billion dollars of sales successfully executed on the platform.
The Ten-X platform has transacted approximately $7 billion in retail properties, $6 billion in office properties, $4 billion in multifamily properties, $3 billion in hotel properties, and billions in value in other commercial property types.
While Ten-X initially focused on distressed assets, non-distressed sellers and brokerage firms have increasingly come to rely on Ten-X to facilitate faster execution to transact properties.
CoStar Group operates the most heavily trafficked online marketplace for commercial properties and land for lease and sale in North America and Europe with 10 million monthly visitors in April 2020 to its websites.
After completion of the transaction, CoStar Group intends to integrate the Ten-X digital transaction platform directly into both LoopNet and CoStar thereby exposing the properties that brokers are selling on the Ten-X platform to millions of potential buyers from around the world.
“Together, Ten-X and CoStar plan to create a new end-to-end commercial real estate platform, combining LoopNet and CoStar’s unmatched online audience of buyers with Ten-X’s clear leadership in online auctions for both performing and distressed assets”, said CoStar Group Chief Executive Officer Andrew Florance.
“Combining our complementary capabilities is expected to create significant benefits for brokers and the institutions they represent by exposing their properties for sale to the biggest pool of potential bidders on the most trusted digital transaction platform and delivering fast and reliable trade execution. In the aftermath of the economic disruption which is being caused by the global pandemic, we believe that the volume of distressed properties coming to market will surge and that this combined platform will support the market’s recovery.”
“Today, only one percent of all commercial real estate sales transactions take place online,” noted Steve Jacobs, CEO of Ten-X.
“Just like CoStar Group, we are focused on driving volume and efficiency and have devoted ourselves to addressing the massive, untapped demand for digital commercial real estate solutions. We see significant demand for a one-stop shop platform that provides solutions across the entire transaction continuum and we are delighted to combine our complementary capabilities and strengths with CoStar to meet that demand.”
Ten-X Commercial’s 2019 unaudited financial statements reflect revenue of approximately $57 million. Revenue for the first quarter of 2020 was approximately $13 million, representing revenue growth of 35 percent compared to the first quarter of 2019, and operating profit of approximately zero.
The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2020, subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory review.
Ten-X was acquired by investment funds affiliated with Thomas H. Lee Partners, L.P. and certain co-investors in September 2017, as part of a broader acquisition of a holding company that owned Ten-X, Auction.com and a business formerly known as Ten-X Homes.
Following such acquisition, Ten-X was separated from the other businesses, and this acquisition does not include such other businesses. Investment funds affiliated with Thomas H. Lee Partners, L.P. and certain co-investors continue to own Auction.com.
