Money Saving Expert Sold

BREWSTERS · Jun 1, 2012

Christ, if I'd sold a site for £87m (and that had been making 8 figures a year previously) I'd be hiring an acting coach just to perfect my smug look...in fact I'd hire someone to look smug for me for when my cheeks ache!

Good luck to him and anyone else who can do the same!

retired_member34 · Jun 1, 2012

domainseller200 said:
He is also doanting £10m cash to charity from this sale : http://www.metro.co.uk/news/900923-martin-lewis-moneysavingexpert-sold-to-moneysupermarket-for-87m

Perhaps a very smart and very expensive PR move? No one can accuse him of not excelling at what he does. Look at the forums though, and as a few here have stated that is where the value was created, and you'll find lots of long time members with thousands and tens of thousands of posts that have been thanked hundreds of thousands of times, each having given enormous amounts of time for free to help others save money, many of which are in serious debt. Their "consumer champion" seems to have made a large amount of money with their help over the years - not just from this sell out but millions per year. From their point of view I can understand a certain bitterness.

The site has always made it clear that it is financed through affiliate payments, but when Martin took the site out of a company and into his own name in 2006 (a highly unusual move as it gave him personally full liability, almost unheard of for a FSA regulated business) I think he did it to hide the amount of money it was making, as it does not sit well with the consumer champion title.

I am full of admiration for what he has done. Perhaps now there will become room for a new form of competitor, that ties in all the consumer champions of the MSE forums somehow?

Don't pay me any attention, it's Friday afternoon before a long weekend and I'm bored. Think I'll go to the pub

jwm · Jun 1, 2012

Nice sale and also a HUGE opportunity for someone. Rightly or wrongly there are going to be a lot of disenfranchised users of MSE who will now be looking for a new 'unbiased' portal to use.

tifosi · Jun 1, 2012

I get the impression he's not an overly extravagant person and the'res only so many zeros you can have in the bank before philanthropy rears it's head. And still tax deductable!

Outstanding performance. He's worked hard at the business overall.

tifosi · Jun 1, 2012

jwm said:
Nice sale and also a HUGE opportunity for someone. Rightly or wrongly there are going to be a lot of disenfranchised users of MSE who will now be looking for a new 'unbiased' portal to use.

Apparently 59% of revenue came from MSE so I think it will be same old same old for the forseeable. Actually good business for MSE as they can pay themselves for the links now!