SEEK has announced a fresh $10 million investment in One Africa Media thereby raising its stake to 30%.
Australian-based SEEK is the world’s largest online employment marketplace by market capitalisation today. It initially invested in One Africa Media in June 2013. With this investment, this takes Seek’s total stake in OAM from 6% to 30%.
One Africa Media owns, operates and invests in a portfolio of leading online marketplaces across jobs, cars, real estate and travel. Its businesses which operate in Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania and Zimbabwe offer exposure to markets with rapidly growing internet and mobile penetration rates.
Commenting on the OAM investment, Seek International Corporate Development Director Ronnie Fink, said “SEEK has been pleased with the performance of OAM as it continues to execute on its key strategic objectives of growing market leadership. Our increased investment reflects the confidence we have in the business and we look forward to continuing our work alongside management to build leader businesses in these fast growing markets.”
OAM has delivered very strong operational KPI growth and has also begun to see some promising top line growth. Since SEEK’s initial investment the business has been expanding its geographical footprint aggressively.
- Equity ownership in all OAM subsidiaries have increased with OAM now owning 100% of Jobberman and BrighterMonday, the two job businesses.
- Jobs and cars have expanded to new markets, and there has been an acquisition in property in Kenya, and general classifieds in Zimbabwe
- The largest business in the group, Private Property South Africa is now breakeven and is well placed to improve profitability.
OAM will use SEEK’s additional investment to drive growth strategies across marketing, sales, product and IT.
