Zoopla is to acquire Property Software Group, the major suppliers of software systems such as Vebra, Alto, Jupix, Core and CFP, to agents. PSG’s systems are used in over 8,000 UK agency branches. The software is used on a daily basis by over 40,000 agents.
It has long been speculated that one of the big portals would make such an acquisition.
The deal, said Zoopla this morning, will enable it “to provide the UK property industry’s first end-to-end solution for property professionals”.
Mark Goddard, PSG CEO, will become managing director of Zoopla’s property services division.
Zoopla said: “The acquisition of PSG is a core part of ZPG’s continued mission to be the most effective partner for UK property professionals and will enable the enlarged Group to offer agents the UK property industry’s first end-to-end solution including software and CRM, digital marketing and market insight tools and further revenue opportunities.”
Zoopla is paying £75m on a cash-free, debt-free basis payable in cash, with £47m payable on completion, £22m payable six months after completion and £3m payable each of 12 and 24 months after completion. The value of PSG’s gross assets was £28.2m aas at the end of March.
The transaction will be funded from the Group’s existing cash and a £50m extension of the current debt facility it has secured from its existing lenders.
Zoopla Property Group will maintain its current dividend policy of 35%-45% payout ratio of the combined group profit.
Completion of the deal is conditional upon either the cancellation of PSG’s existing FCA consumer credit licence or FCA approval of the change of control of PSG, whichever is the earlier
The transaction provides an exit for PSG’s institutional backers, LDC, the private equity arm of Lloyds Banking Group, which originally invested in the business in December 2013 along with certain members of the management team including Mark Goddard, Eduardo Mardell and James Toogood.
Zoopla CEO Alex Chesterman said of the deal: “This acquisition is a game-changer, combining ZPG’s best-in-class property marketing solutions with PSG’s best-in-class property workflow solutions, and will transform the services available for both UK agents and consumers.
“We will be able to offer UK property professionals an unrivalled proposition supporting them with their software and CRM solutions, digital marketing requirements, market insight tools along with providing them a range of new revenue opportunities through PSG’s MoveIT platform.
“Our ambition has always been to be the most effective partner to the UK property industry and this deal will allow us to work more closely with our agent partners and offer them an even more compelling service. I look forward to welcoming Mark and his team to the ZPG family.”
In a statement to Zoopla staff this morning, Chesterman says that PSG will continue to operate as a standalone brand and platform. Post completion, he says, “we will start to integrate some of our services, further driving engagement with and value to our agent partners”.
ZPG’s 230 employees will join the Zoopla group, and Chesterman says: “This is an important transaction and one that we have been working on for some time. A lot of effort has gone into getting this done and I would like to thank those who have helped to get us to this point.”
I said many moons ago AM should develop Agency Software also…… The way forward in my opinion.
If you [AM] could hurry up, as I now have to hand my notice in to PSG! pronto.
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Funny. They can’t develop a website that attracts consumers. What makes you think they can develop agent software?!
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Thanks HarryN – this acquisition may just keep you in a job at Z towers for a tad longer.
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And the runner-up prize for “Most Predictable Comment of the Year” goes to…
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Say goodbye to all your data privacy if you subscribe to one of the.
Buyers, sellers, renters landlord details all in the hand of Z who will then try and sell them the same products you are selling them.
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Indeed. I was concerned when PSG started with this Move-it thing, which was basically an inbuilt comparison site within Encore, where your service providers, Solicitors, Removal companies etc could bid for business and new clients – I think I had good reason.
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smile please
Some might say that you potentially kissed goodbye to that some time ago…
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Gulp. Time to commission own software.
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Key points people would like to see…?
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That it works would be a canny start…
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A no **** sherlock comment if ever I saw one PeeBee
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you’d expect that to be a basic requirement but sadly for him the system he has doesn’t
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Frown Please
Do you like ‘Post-It’ Notes?
Some people love them. Clag them everywhere there is a receptive surface.
A new feature of certain software is the ‘Sticky Note’ – and you can clag it on your – and everyone else’s – screen.
Unfortunately they are proving to be extremely UNsticky – and often disappear without trace – which is both awkward and annoying to users and often leads to problems.
I am not the only person posting here who has been told whenever they ring with ‘issues’ that we are apparently the first to report these issues.
The software is now THREE YEARS old – yet ‘fixes’ and ‘upgrades’ are common and still there are problems.
Happy days…
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An unwelcome tentacle slides around agencies… If ever there was a signal to get behind OTM, this is it.
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Smart move this, similar approach is done in the automotive industry with Mainhiem..
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How very handy… Data is one of THE most important tools we have as agents. If you’re currently using Zoopla, please think long and hard about where and what this is now leading too.
More ‘buyer tools’ to negotiate prices are on the way, how sad when the client is the seller…
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Customer Portal all in one place on Zoopla..
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I would have preferred Rightmove doing this! Smart move by Z full stop. Can’t get you on the website we will take you cash on software and get even more of your data than we do with Z.
AM too slow to my suggestion even pre launch….. AM Software could have been a great add on to the cause and a way to sell against the fears of Data Protection…
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Wow!
Hundred’s of agents just woke up to find they are working for a new boss!
This really could be a game changer. For some time I had been thinking that the portals strategy is really about data mining and less to do with traditional estate agency services.
I bet Rightmove are ‘gutted’!
Even more reason to back OTM for the long term now.
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This, I think, can lead to potentially a terrifying situation.
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Looks like a forward thinking business and as I use both im looking forward to seeing what they can offfer , people who dont like change wont like this change
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And the prize for “Most Predictable Comment of the Year” goes to…
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I think if there has ever been any doubt Danny and Harry have been outed as Z reps. Only comment on OTM stories because they ‘Care’ but then endorse this dangerous purchase for agents.
If you agree with OTM or not you can see this is bad for agents.
If you are thinking of joining OTM do it now and change software provider if it is mentioned above.
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Was just thinking exactly the same smile please – anti-OTM & endorsing this incredibly dangerous deal, what other conclusion can one reach about these posters? If agents have an ounce of sense they will switch suppliers. What benefit is there for agents here? By all means support zoopla as a property portal but this is one acquisition that agents should avoid like the plague.
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Sorry , I wasnt aware this was an OTM story but just to be clear I fully endorse OTM . If you are a competitor of mine, please go use it…and change your software supplier whilst your at it …
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Hi all. I usually post funny comments but a genuine question today.
Can someone explain to me (like I’m five years old and have never heard of Zoopla) what is so ‘dangerous’ about this acquisition? I don’t have experience of Zoopla and am pretty new to estate agency so would like to know how customers/agents are going to be disadvantaged by the purchase?
Any takers?
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If you use certain software there’s a possibility you will find out soon enough…
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Are you going to elaborate or rely on ellipsis, PeeBee?
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Are you starting to get the picture now, mrharvey?
And I didn’t even need to type another word for my everpresent Plank to ‘Dislike’.
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Mr Harvey – consumers will have zero disadvantage, but forward thinking agents and interested vendors will have plenty of advantages – they’ll be able to rescue chains, secure purchases, have visibility over any risk by having a homogeneous view of the whole market.
A quite brilliant move. I imagine the city(and most Z detractors) are shocked this was by Z and not RM.
Protectionist agents will have a disadvantage if they want to look after their own, and not their clients’, interest. This should help more sales go through, which if looked at objectively, will help everyone.
if OTM had done this, most of you’d be busting out the champers.
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Agreed DE.
RM perhaps do not need to get “back in” where as Z do, so maybe RM will think whatever.
OTM could have stole the lead on this and created a software package knowing they had thousands of agents who wanted to take back control and would have supported a one stop shop owned by its member agents.
Z have been very smart with this, RM don’t care and OTM have simply Slept!
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DE do you get fed up of unsolicited emails and PPI calls, does it sit well with you that your data is being sold?
This is how the consumers as you put it will be disadvantaged.
Then you have the ethical dilemma that agents are paying for a product and the provider is selling competing products to their clients!
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If I’m well in to the process of selling my property, and I get a call from an agent (or the agent gets a call) from someone highlighting why the transaction is at risk and with a possible solution then I can’t see an ethical dilemma at all.
Also, there is nothing we do as human consumers that isn’t sold to interested third parties.
And I made £7k back from PPI.
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DE – Nobody will call you to say why the transaction is at risk, its about getting your details to sell to you.
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I think you’re missing the point, Smile. What are they going to be selling? It’s data to help agents protect sales/purchases.
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I think you are missing a point.
No they are not. Its not about protection its about profit.
They will be selling mortgages, solicitors, moving companies, utilities, probably a sky TV pack to them!
It has NOTHING to do with protecting sales.
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I’m sure that will be part of it, but which large, successful company on earth doesn’t do this?
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It’s called advertising to a target market. When you (any agent) advertise in the newspaper or leaflet your own database you’re doing the exact same thing. Just on a much smaller scale.
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Its the only part.
Find me another company that you pay to advertise with that then has direct access to your database and sells direct to them the same products you do. If you can come up with half a dozen i would be surprised. And if you do are the product users aware of it?
DE – I like tech obviously you do, its not about tech its about underhand business practice.
Its about exposing this dangerous trap so business owners can make the right choice for their business.
I do not do what you do but let me try and put it in a way you might see the dangers.
Lets say you are a successful website hoster with hundreds or thousands of websites on your servers. Lets say you subscribe to an expensive management system to help manage the servers / websites.
Now lets say the expensive management system is directly contacting the owners of the websites and offering them similar services to you say ppc, engaging websites, link building or anything else that you may offer.
Would you chose to use that provider or another that left your clients alone?
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mmmm google ?
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Smile, I think that you are balanced and credible poster on here so I wanted to offer you another scenario. Lets imagine that you are the successful website hoster and the expensive management system approached you and said “I can now tell you where your missing revenue oppportunity within your own database and future opportunites from companies you already know. There is a fee but I can help you take market share from the other website hosters that are out there because your not the only one offering this , I can try and instill a competitive advantage in return for a fee” The 4th rule of from the habits of highly succesful people is to think win win. The best example is two authors recommending each others books instead of rubbishing them. The idea being that both authors will sell more books .Some people on here would troll the author, tell their audience that the world was flat and the others guys ideas are dangerous before trying to get together a mob to go round their house with pitchforks because the world is flat and any other ideas are heracy and they should be burnt …think win win
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google do not have access to your database to your business including direct numbers, email addresses, home addresses of your clients along with all the other information you put on the software such as potential properties coming to the market, if they are a residential or BTL. They do not then sell direct to them.
As a zoopla rep i know why this is such good news for you but where is there any good news for the agents that pay circa £300 per branch per month?
If a company came to you today offered you advertising at a hefty price and then asked for an unrestricted copy of your database that they can sell competing products to would you agree?
If the answer is yes you are either a liar or stupid.
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“…think win win…”
Innit funny how desperately easy it is to tell everyone else to do so – when you are seemingly the one sitting in the ‘win winner’ thinking chair already…
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in your senario there is no win, win its lose, lose.
What are Z going to identify to me that i do not already know? – Possibly like Vizzi, they can provide me with other agents addresses? – in turn providing mine to them.
The thing you reps do is put us all in the lowest common denominator. Like a corporate does with its staff. The systems in place only benefit the poor agents wishing to improve. It actually hinders good agents.
I have systems in place at my branches looking at what opportunities are available and i do not give away my data. We do not even give out data to surveyors unless they prove who they are!
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Totally the same here on this, Smile Please.
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its only really dangerous if you go our without wearing a foil helmet to prevent ‘them’ from reading your brainwaves
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Smile, when you say Google dont have access to your direct telephone numbers and email addresses it’s quite amusing.They know your childrens shoe size and the last time your wife had a cold,what time you go to bed and your favorite song,you favorite order from the chinese and which supermarket you prefer. Having access to email addresses was important in 2001 , the games moved on a bit since then …as for the portal rep bit again …yawn .
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AutoTrader achieved the same thing years ago and managed to build a billion pound business whilst adding value and new services to the market. Yes many car dealers complained BUT many dealers spend less on overall advertising now than when they used AutoTrader, local papers, Exchange and Mart etc etc. Data ownership can be a weapon or a tool depending on how it’s used. PSG CEO Mark Goddard is a smart guy and also an ex-long term employee of Autotrader so understands this very well. It’s a very smart move from Zoopla and a missed opportunity for AM and RM.
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By the same thing, I mean data management, distribution, and portal ownership.
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Brilliant and entirely apt observation.
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One tries one’s best DE old boy. Likewise, I enjoyed your observations above. With this level of mutual backslapping, we could pass for agents stuck in the 70’s at a Golf Club Dinner!
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I’ll be the one in the bow-tie propping up the bar! The first round’s on me. 🙂
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Headline
Shockwaves as firm with bad bedside manner buys firm with bad bedside manner !!!
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This is a great acquisition; for the first time in the UK, agency side data will be combined with the insight of consumer behaviour and spending. The real winner? The consumer.
Agents should park their ‘data paranoia’ in favour of working to seize the single biggest opportunity to improve their service, deliver a more complete moving experience for their clients and earn more money from more revenue streams.
If you move more people, more quickly and more comprehensively, you’ll make more money.
Think that technology doesn’t play a fundamental role in this? You’ve already lost.
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Digitalfix, you are either ignoring the issues to us as agents or just blind.
Tell me how this benefits agents or our database?
All they want to do it have access to more individuals who need mortgages, solicitors, surveyors, moving companies, utilities and insurance.
All the things an agent can provide, so if DPG group offer it TO OUR DATABASE how does that financial benefit us?
And to rub salt into the wound they make us pay for the portal and software despite working against us!
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Couldn’t agree more, @smileplease
@digitalfix, I would agree with you that insight into consumer behaviour can be very good for the future of any industry. However, when you try to align this statement with the interests of a large PLC company snapping up data sources for profit and control of an industry, it completely goes against your following comment of “The real winner? The consumer.”
I’m presuming (by your username) that you are an expert within the field of digital.
I’m an ‘expert’ in the field of property.
These two fields/specialities can work in harmony, as an aid. Not a complete solution, that requires people, good people.
Protect your customers data peeps! 🙂
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Totally agree with you, Mark.
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‘Smile Please’ – last time I looked, I saw something – so that would confirm I’m not blind.
I know a great deal about the industry; and even more about technology – it’s also great that I’m on the sidelines watching a strategic move play out that in some ways I helped initiate.
Would you agree that many property people fall in to the trap of showcasing a ‘small agent mentality’ – typified by a general notion of ‘don’t try to monetise something I am not actually monetising myself’.
You would do well to drop your belief that you own the entire property transaction. Acting with a sense of entitlement is choking your ability to see this opportunity for what it is.
You can’t adequately counter-argue the benefits of a disruptive shift in the industry that has been on the cards for a good few years now.
Without a doubt the percentage fee model is broken, dated and trending out. You need new sources of revenue and the systems that enable you – this is why I think it’s a great acquisition by ZPG.
The fundamental question is ‘who owns the consumer?’ Not you my friend.
If you feel like you are trying to hold on rather than lead from the front, then perhaps it’s time to rethink your business model; as sure as night follows day, someone or something will put you out of luck and ultimately out on your ar$e.
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If you don’t like your data being given away insist that your contract excludes it. This is a logical choice by Zoopla as a company and I’m sure Rightmove will announce their own software development/ acquisition very soon.
That said, the potential for a single monopoly or duopoly dominating the entire process of buying and selling property in the UK with all of the potential inherent conflicts of interests and lack of competition and transparency would be a disaster for property owners and the UK property market as a whole. It is possible this could herald a golden age of estate agency but, I somehow doubt it.
Big business can be a wonderful force for good however, if you are happy to eat horsemeat when you you have paid for and biting into what you think is a premium burger, today may just be a day to circle in your diary.
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Perfect analogy, Mr Wood.
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http://www.propertyindustryeye.com/zoopla-letter-vendor-whose-property-longer-site-confirmed-genuine/
“The data used in this and other campaigns is sourced externally.”
I wonder what they will do with all the data they’ll be able to source internally?
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Nostalgic link, back when we had ‘easychris’ to converse with …. Ahhhhh happy times!
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Wake up and smell the coffee fellow colleagues .. Why wouldn’t you back OTM, especially now. Worrying times for agents that are not seeing the bigger picture…
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Because it’s not very good? Because 14 months after launch RM & Z have not been effected one bit? Because a large number of it’s current members want out? Because it delivers nothing and has reneged on it’s promises to those that did back it? Because no one that uses an estate agent knows what it is?
There’s a few reasons why people wouldn’t back OTM.
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“Because 14 months after launch RM & Z have not been effected one bit?”
I’m so glad you’re an “expert” (however self-appointed that m) in ‘Digital’ – because reality and common sense are far from your specialist subjects…
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He sounds to me like – and as credible as – George Osborne yesterday. Thank goodness he’s not an agent.
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You act is if you’re the PIE comment curator, PeeBee without actually adding much of value yourself.
Too much time on your hands?
Less time critiquing the quality of other people’s posts and more time adding to what you say may be a more valuable use of the forum.
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“Because 14 months after launch RM & Z have not been effected one bit?”
RM – more dominant, more expensive, more secure
Z – continuing to innovate and invest very intelligently and aggressively.
Meanwhile OTM open up an overseas division to really help the man on the high street.
Anything to add to that?
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Yeah, in fact – just a wee bit.
I’m trying to imagine just how WHOOPPEEFRICKINDOO! you could have really been about your mythical “have not been effected (sic) one bit” scenario, had SIX THOUSAND Estate Agency branches not dropped one or other of them over the last 16 months.
Why – I’d have to reckon you’d have been totally unbearable with your gusto.
Nauseating to the extreme, in fact.
As it is – I would simply say that there’s quite a few people who are rapidly becoming ‘DE Intolerant’ judging by the comments on here.
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What strange posts you’re resorting to now – the only person that is intolerant on here to my views (mostly well founded based in reality) is you. In fact I’ve had a couple of compliments today, which is nice.
Once again, you’ve added nothing. Don’t get so cross – we’re only discussing the property industry. 🙂
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Angry? Me?
You’ve got the wrong person there.
More tickled than vexed, actually.
I love watching the pains people go to in keeping their agendas as hidden as possible…
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To be fair to DE, you’re the nause here PeeBee. Over the last 6 months youve become the irritating troll that offers nothing but sticks his face into everything.
Youve developed a new vocabulary of words over that time that you think make you all hip, cool and ironic but they just make you sound like a bitter old man pushing for the cause of the betamax long after everyone else knows it’s going the way of the dodo.
You just have to look at the difference in likes and dislikes between your posts and his on here to know that everyone else wishes you’d put a sock in it and give it a rest.
Take the afternoon off from here, do a bit of work, and come back tomorrow with a new outlook, yeah?
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And out from the woodwork pops…
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Add a dozen ‘Likes’ here… stick a dozen ‘Dislikes’ there – how cutesy.
Pure comic gold.
Oh sorry – that should have read ‘Pathetic eejits’.
Darn this autocorrect malarkey.
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so the issue is selling data to providers of other services?
I’m not a mortgage advisor, removals company, solicitor, surveyor, utility company or insurance salesman. I am however an estate agent. My customers details matter but only when it comes to selling houses. I’m pretty sure a letter from a removals company that arrives 1 week after the launch of my property is from data sold. But this will not change my vendors mind of how good an estate agent I am as the property has a for sale board, RM and Z advertising as well as my website and it is everywhere. It is almost common knowledge that you will be pecked at and advertised to by other companies, I’ve even had a local corporate drive to everyone of my properties and offer their services.
when you put your details into moneysupermarket, go compare, meerkat.com.. .. and all the rest of the websites out there. SKY, BT, and every provider of a service sell your details to everyone. There is no getting away unless you are 90 years old and haven’t changed a service since the end of the war.
Your details are farmed constantly, so why fight it…
Didn’t I see smileplease asking about buying data in the arena – at least you now have a one stop shop for all the data you’ll ever need. At least you’ll know where it’s come from. 🙂
well…… can I just say that I’m definitely not for ZPG taking over all these but if OTM is my only choice and moving away from a software platform that enables me to do a job efficiently (jupix) then i’m staying put and people can use the data. It will impact my customers very little (I would expect) as there are enough places to gather data that this is just one in the mix.
Sky sold my data to BT – all I can say
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Fair play on the myself looking to buy data, i am!
Difference is, I have not signed up to a data provider to provide me with data for £XXXX’s then given them a complete copy of my database for them to go on a sell to a number of my direct competitors or even for them to contact themselves.
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Big news for the industry, but why the fuss? A train pulls into a station, some people get off and some people get on. No one notices or cares that one driver gets off and a new driver gets on. The train is still on track and heading in the same direction, there is no drama and the destination is the same.
The data you are so concerned and paralytic with fear about? People and peoples properties. Most of, if not all of these people are more than likely to have been crawling all over RM, Zoopla, OTM and any other website they choose long before they get to you the agent. There is little they don’t already know and nothing that hasn’t already been “sold” to them. I know how many people used to turn up at my agency door not having had at least a peep into all of the moving services. Not many; and that was years ago, prior to this new breed of even better connected and educated home movers of today.
Own your space in your market.
Use the tools available to you that help you to maximise your potential. I’m not best pleased about the news, but my vendors, landlords and prospects, when under my influence, moved with me because of the services I offered them. If you feel aggrieved by this news I would suggest it could be because you don’t quite understand the detail, nor the tools available to you and how to use them. Investigate them and get to know your enemy and then you might find you’ll end up very good friends.
Oh and by the way, you have never had control of your data seeing as your “data” was born with feet and hands, eyes and ears. What? You think these people are only registered with you and speaking to you and are not on countless other websites selling data? And if you are that concerned that they will run off because someone mail shots them then take a look a long hard look in the mirror. If they run off it was because YOU didn’t deliver the thing they have run off to. In my view and in a bizarre twist this union could well raise standards for the industry.
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I’m surprised it’s taken this long for it to happen, to be honest. I guess there are bad points and bad points…
I can imagine creating particulars may become a nuisance “Sorry, the record cannot be saved. You have not entered the following mandatory information: Current electricity supplier. Current gas supplier. Current media supplier. Amount charged per month for electricity. What car does the vendor own? When was the car last serviced? What supermarket does the vendor use?…”
And I feel sorry for the PSG staff. History shows us that Zoopla swallow up companies and then a year down the line transfer everything to head office. If I were at CFP’s Cornwall office say, I’d be looking on Indeed.com right now!
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That was supposed to read “…good points and bad points…”! Freudian slip maybe 🙂
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One thing that will 100% be screwed is the personal touch, if there is any already! I find the way how we get attract agents is by creating the platform for their needs, all agents want the system to work slightly differently, we offer that, they won’t, maybe sales will pick up!!
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OK maybe I was wrong to say people who care about honesty and integrity are feminist but dude, “Our ambition has always been to be the most effective partner to the UK property industry” sounds about as sincere as a date on Tinder. Jeez you have to figure they’re short on guilt on account of a perceived assumption that they’re our panacea. Got us feeling like temporarily embarrassed millionaires instead of exploited so they can get swollen like a tick off our hard work. Real funny Zoopla, I got a fake laugh with your name all over it.
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Why on earth are people bothered about data being sold?
Any data PSG hold on vendors, landlords, buyers etc etc etc – belongs to the AGENT, so it’s not PSG’s or Zoopla’s to sell.
People making a stink over nothing, methinks.
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Not saying this would happen as it is clearly impossible and most businesses are too straight to do something like this……. but imagine….
Imagine as an Encore user (ie the Agent) every time you enter an applicant with a property to sell……. the estate agency arm of one of the Software Providers major shareholders (or even the Software Provider if they were inclined to enter online agency) have a record and a way to do targeted marketing although made to look like a coincidental mail drop?
Every time you click “Valuation” on Encore, that client is sent a generic “if you are ever thinking of selling give us a call tout” from one of their shareholder corporate agencies.
Or perhaps an offer is made on a property and off goes that random “coincidental Mortgage eLeaflet”
Fact is Zoopla have shown a clear sign they are happy to publically slag agents off who are not on their site, the way they handled OTM launch was horrific in part. Put that aside and with uSwtich and PSG they have access to all of your future commission and IF (not that they would) but IF they wanted to they could cleverly be touting your clients without you knowing it and would you ever know or ever be able to prove it? NO!
Z would buy a chain of newsagents or garden centres if data was nothing to do with it……
Again just imagine knowing what valuations your competitors had in this week if your diary was empty…… quick random mail drop to 5 houses either side of the addresses being valued and your foot is in the door. It isn’t rocket science.
Hope all that makes sense.
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I should have added; would you be happy if every name and address you enter on your system “given in confidence to you “LordElpus56” is then sold to a competitor?
Do you say to your applicants and vendors, thanks for your details, now we have them on our system they may now be sold by our software provider? Give it a go if you don’t and see what the reaction is!
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Someone is very conspicuous in their absence today, Ric – same person who has been previously accused of cryptic riddles (credit: smile please) on this very subject.
Not normally one to keep his own counsel or to say ‘told you so’ – however the silence is deafening and I want to borrow his crystal ball for tonight’s winning numbers…
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The telephone , text and emails have just stopped so I can draw breath.
I suspect the Scott Trust and GMG might be wondering what on earth just happened to them and whether the professional and executive advice given to them over the disposal of Thinkproperty to Zoopla in 2009 and the subsequent disposal of GMGPS was sound, fair and clean.
With Vebra, Core and CFP now very much legacy systems, Alto apparently not enjoying the operational resilience of it’s predecessors and with no sight to date of client cash accounting module for Alto I personally wonder what has been added to the group to warrant the significant increase in value in such a short space of time.
As this thread is clearly evidencing the right to income derived from data and the value of data is a subject that has just been bought into sharp focus by this acquisition and no doubt a subject that is going to receive a lot of warranted attention.
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A bit late on this band wagon, been busy .. property and stuff.
Having just done some googling (as apparently that’s the truth out there Mulder) .. and I can’t find any historical articles of any worth that relate to a software providor illegaly selling or passing on any Estate Agency data outside of their contracts .. although incidently there were many results of agents using data that had been aquired through ‘suspect’ means, or just buying a mailing list HEAVEN FORBID.
There was a comment I noticed earlier (Chri Wood) that I belive covers the legality .. ‘it is your data {agent}, not the software prividors {psg}, surely they are just a custodian, and will treat this data under the terms and conditions of the contract in place.
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Aplogies .. it was LordElpus56
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Most agents don’t read and have not read the terms and conditions of their service contracts, it is not difficult to find third party sharing and ‘our own use’ clauses in the contracts that agents have a signed up to.
Through the trusting belief that the service contract simply contains clauses pertaining to the general day to day operation of the service there is the naive belief you have just demonstrated that the service suppliers are trusted custodians of the data entered onto a system.
At least one service contract I was asked to review puts agents unwittingly on the wrong side of data protection regulations; agents have signed agreements that permit unrestricted 3rd party data sharing and have warranted that they (the agent) have gained explicit consent from everyone whose data is being shared.
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