HDFC to sell HDFC Developers, HDFC Realty to Quikr India for Rs350 crore

Mumbai: Mortgage lender Housing Development Finance Corp. Ltd (HDFC) on Thursday announced the sale of two subsidiaries focusing on real estate brokerage and online property classifieds to Quikr India Pvt. Ltd for a total of Rs350 crore.

HDFC Realty Ltd operates the brokerage business, while HDFC Developers Ltd owns the HDFC Red platform for online real estate classifieds. In a regulatory filing, HDFC said this is an all-stock deal, with the mortgage lender taking a minority stake in Quikr India.

“The future of real estate is digital, and Quikr has built a robust technology platform for consumers with products for developers and brokers who stand to benefit in the post-RERA (Real Estate Regulation and Development Act) regime. We hope to derive value from Quikr’s diversified customer base, while offering our strength in the real estate sector,” said HDFC managing director Renu Sud Karnad.

“We see great synergies between Quikr and HDFC as we start working together to bring a seamless online to offline platform to developers and consumers,” said Pranay Chulet, founder and chief executive of Quikr.

This would be the second-biggest acquisition yet by Quikr in online real estate after it acquired Tiger Global Management-backed real estate platform Commonfloor for $120 million in January 2016.

On 27 April, Mint had reported that HDFC was in talks with Quikr to sell its brokerage business HDFC Reality and digital business HDFC Red in an all-stock deal for a 5% stake in return, citing four people aware of the matter.

Quikr has raised around $346 million since inception in 2008. Its investors include Warbug Pincus, Kinnevik AB, Tiger Global, Steadview Capital Management and Matrix Partners India.

Over the years, the company has added verticals such as real estate, automobiles and online recruitment, largely by acquiring smaller rivals such as Salosa, Stayglad and ZapLuk in the home services segment, Commonfloor and Grabhouse in the real estate segment, Hiree in the recruitment segment and Stepni in the automobile services segment.