ANZ invests $50m in media company

According to ANZ, the $50 million investment will go towards enabling its existing strategy to establish a range of services in the home owner sphere to enhance customer experiences with buying, owning, or renting a property.

This also includes partnering with other service providers in that space such as real estate agents and utility operators.

Under the agreement, ANZ will invest in a minority shareholding in View Media Group (VMG) in order to create a proposed exclusive financial services partnership on key products. In addition, ANZ will gain a set on VMG’s board as part of the transaction.

VMG’s portfolio includes businesses that offer property and media solutions for businesses and consumers such as a residential listing portal, real estate marketing agencies, and property-technology businesses including realestateview.com.au, Propic, and Beevo.

Reported in Mortgage Business sister brand REB, VMG announced in October last year that it had fully acquired proptech firm The Today Business (TTB).

VMG executive chairman Antony Catalano said at the time the transaction has brought “not only Australia’s best lead-generation platform into the group but a team of people that are the best in the business.”

Domain and REA partnerships

In a similar move to ANZ’s partnership with VMG, both REA Group and Domain entered strategic partnerships back in 2017 for the purpose of breaking into the mortgage lending space.

REA Group, parent company of realestate.com.au, announced that it entered an agreement with NAB to build a mortgage broking solution that added to the strategic partnership announced in December 2016, which created an Australian-first end-to-end digital property search and financing experience.

The partnership with NAB enabled REA Group to offer a realestate.com.au broking service for the launch of realestateview.com.au Home Loans.

In response, Domain Group announced just days later that it would be breaking into the mortgage broking sphere.

In partnership with Lendi, Domain Group launched “Domain Loan Finder”, which aimed to give consumers the ability to connect with more than 30 leading lenders (including major banks) along with access to a national community of home loan specialists.

Domain Loan Finder was set to operate as a joint venture with Lendi’s parent entity, Auscred Pty Ltd, with Domain holding a 60 per cent stake.

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