Charlie Bryant, photo: Idealista
Idealista.com, the leading real estate portal in Spain, has added Zoopla CEO Charlie Bryant to its board a non-executive director. The appointment comes after new investments from Oakley Capital and Apax Partners following Idealista’s $1.58 billion acquisition by EQT in December 2020.
Bryant (LinkedIn profile) has been chief executive officer of Zoopla, the UK’s second-largest property portal by traffic, since 2017. Under his guidance it has pursued an aggressive revenue expansion strategy focused on consumer products services. His Idealista appointment is the strongest signal yet of how EQT Partners hopes to get a return on its record-setting (for Spain) property portal investment.
Idealista has traditionally earned most of its revenues from listings, much like top British portal RightMove.co.uk. In recent years it has expanded its professional services by buying software firms and data company Tercero B. It has not yet made a major push to grow revenue from end users. Bryant’s spot on the board may change that.
In a press statement Idealista co-founder and CEO Jesus Encinar said, “Charlie… leads one of the world’s best-known real estate classifieds companies and we are sure that his experience and knowledge will be very enriching for Idealista.” Presumably, he means that literally.