March 2008

CEOs go amid portal changes

No room for Springett of Primelocation and FindaProperty’s Garratt

THE chief executives of the Primelocation and FindaProperty internet portals are leaving their posts in the wake of a reshuffle of operations at the Daily Mail group, which owns the two sites.

The group has announced the formation of a new, as yet unnamed, property division within Associated Northcliffe Digital, which will encompass both primelocation.com and findaproperty.com.

Respective chief executives Ian Springett and David Garratt will leave once the handover is completed — within a couple of months. A new single chief executive, Mark Milner, has been appointed to run the new division.

Mr Springett had been involved since the early days of 1999 in setting up the Primelocation site with many of the larger London agents as shareholders in the original setup when it was known as 'Fastcrop’.

Mr Garratt was part of the buy-out of the original FindaProperty and sold the site to AN Digital in 2004. AN Digital acquired Prime Location in 2005.

Both say the arrangement is amicable and accept the need for a coordinated management approach.

At present AN Digital say that each brand will have its own intensive and differentiated promotional campaign and accept that they have differing and distinctive brand positioning.

Taking them under one management must mean that they are looking for some economies of scale and that consideration of a merger of the brands is inevitable. But Mr Milner says that they are committed to both brands.

“We will continue to pursue a twin brand strategy, positioning FindaProperty.com and primelocation.com as differentiated brands in the marketplace,” he said. “In order to drive this through, and for us to generate maximum value from our strategy, it is important that the businesses are led in a coordinated way.”

FindaProperty have recently announced a joint venture with the Daily Mail group’s local media group Northcliffe Media in which there is a £10 million marketing investment.

The January figures by audience measure specialists Comscore show FindaProperty in third place and Primelocation in fourth behind Rightmove in a very clear first place and Property Finder in second.