Carsome buys 19.9% of Australia-listed iCar Asia

By THE STAR | 14 July 2021


PETALING JAYA: Carsome Group, South-East Asia’s largest integrated automotive e-commerce company, has acquired 19.9% of Australia-listed iCar Asia Ltd from Catcha Group.

Carsome and Catcha Group have also made a joint proposal to the independent directors of iCar Asia to acquire the remaining 80.1% of iCar from its shareholders.

“The total transaction is estimated to be worth more than US$200mil (RM838mil), ” Carsome said in a statement yesterday.

“Carsome and iCar Asia, combined, offer an integrated automotive ecosystem for dealers to source, advertise and sell cars; and for consumers to research, sell and buy cars in a region that trades over US$55bil (RM230bil) worth of automobiles annually.”

Carsome added that the deal would cement the group as South-East Asia’s most valuable digital automotive marketplace.

It said the proposed integration with iCar Asia would offer significant strengths such as a revenue target of US$1bil (RM4.2bil) for 2021; seeing around 100, 000 cars to be transacted annually; having over 460, 000 live partner listings; recording more than 10 million monthly unique visitors and having over 13, 000 car dealers on its network.

Carsome said the integration will also boast the largest automotive data set, with new products and services to be announced.

“This acquisition unites two renowned tech entrepreneurs in the South-East Asian region, namely, Eric Cheng, the co-founder and group chief executive officer (CEO) of Carsome and Patrick Grove, the co-founder and group CEO of Catcha Group.

“Catcha Group will become a shareholder of the Carsome Group in exchange for the sale of its shares in iCar Asia to Carsome.

“Cheng will lead the Carsome Group as CEO and he welcomes Grove’s support as one of the founders, alongside Cheng and Jiun Ee Teoh to drive the future growth of the business.”

Carsome said the deal would provide even greater solutions and experience across the buying and selling value chain.

“The proposed acquisition of iCar Asia offers an enhanced suite of digital products and services to more dealers and consumers in all key markets.

“The expanded suite of solutions will offer an end-to-end, super-app experience that covers the entire car buying and selling value chain.”

The group said consumers will enjoy a seamless, one-stop solution as Carsome expands its offerings to span the whole car ownership journey from search, transaction, finance and insurance to after-sales services.

Commenting on the deal, Cheng said the transaction was an important part of Carsome’s growth strategy to build the entire automotive ecosystem in South-East Asia and transform the industry through trust, transparency and technology.

“This is the first step toward consolidation to form the largest digital automotive group in terms of revenue, user base, largest live listing and the best end-to-end fulfilment capability in the region, ” he said.

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