News International Invests in Globrix

Globrix is a new type of property search website – unlike existing market players, it doesn’t charge estate agents to list and therefore will cover virtually every agent in the UK. Rather than having to search across multiple property sites, Globrix will enable house-hunters to search across virtually all UK properties from a single site.

Globrix brings a new business model to the property search market. Rather than relying on agents to pay for listings in a traditional classified property advertising model, Globrix will automatically list and link to properties from thousands of agents’ websites, generating revenues from the sale of advertising space around the results in the same way as search engine businesses such as Google.

Founded by two recognised technology experts with backgrounds at leading global search companies, Globrix applies proprietary technology to deliver advanced property search. Whereas the vast majority of competitors only allow users to search by price, postcode and number of bedrooms, Globrix’s technology enables users to delve deeper and search by other criteria such as garden, parking, distance from transport or period of property.

Daniel Lee, CEO of Globrix, said: “Globrix is about answering a fundamental need in this marketplace – creating a Google-style model for the property search industry. By enabling agents to list for free we cover virtually every property in the UK, which in turn provides a hugely compelling proposition for consumers and creates a new opportunity for an ad-funded model.”

“News International is clearly the partner of choice for a business of this sort. As well as the scale and resources they can offer us in the UK and, potentially, through News Corporation, overseas, they also bring a massive experience of property markets to the table.”

Clive Milner, Group Managing Director, News International, said: “Through its digital and print media, News International is one of the largest single players in the UK property media market, so this investment is about us remaining at the forefront of what’s happening commercially and technologically.

“Globrix is set to be a truly disruptive business in the online property search marketplace – it essentially turns the economics upside down and creates an unparalleled consumer offering from an innovative business model.”

About Globrix

Globrix () is a new type of property search website. It covers virtually every property for sale or rent in the UK and it allows you to search for property by a huge range of criteria such as price, region, outside space, parking or period.

Globrix has brought a new business model to the property search space. It doesn’t charge agents to list and instead runs an advertising supported model. Its technology automatically searches across virtually every estate agent’s website in the UK, meaning that it can deliver an unparalleled number of properties to buy or for rent.

Founded in 2007 by two experienced Internet search technologists, Globrix is backed by News International Limited and is based in London, UK.

News International Limited is the main UK subsidiary of the global media company News Corporation. Times Newspapers Ltd (TNL) publishes The Times and The Sunday Times and News Group Newspapers Limited (NGN) publishes The Sun and News of the World. TNL and NGN are part of the News International group.

News Corporation (NYSE: - , - ; ASX: - , - ) had total assets as of March 31, 2007 of approximately US$62 billion and total annual revenues of approximately US$28 billion. News Corporation is a diversified entertainment company with operations in eight industry segments: filmed entertainment; television; cable network programming; direct broadcast satellite television; magazines and inserts; newspapers; book publishing; and other. The activities of News Corporation are conducted principally in the United States, Continental Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia, Asia and the Pacific Basin.