HomeServe invests £37m in digital businesses

Home maintenance group HomeServe has improved its digital presence by investing £37m in two companies that provide tradespeople via online platforms.

The Walsall-based company has acquired shareholdings in Checkatrade in the UK and Habitissimo in Spain.

HomeServe said the acquisitions were in line with its strategy to develop its digital presence, extend the range of trades offered and broadening its demographic appeal through online platforms that provided customers with Certified Home Experts whenever they needed them.
 
Checkatrade, based in Selsey, provides an online directory of customer-recommended tradespeople with nearly one million unique customer visits to its website every month. This results in approximately 1.3m jobs per annum. 

HomeServe has acquired a 40% interest in the business with an option to increase its position by a further 35% in two years.
 
Habitissimo provides support for home improvements and repairs, connecting homeowners to trusted local tradespeople.  Based in Mallorca, Habitissimo receives over 3.6 million unique customer visits a month, resulting in approximately 0.25m jobs per annum across nine countries in Europe (Spain, Portugal, Italy and France) and Latin America (Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Chile and Colombia).  

HomeServe has acquired a 70% interest in the business with an option to increase its position by a further 30% in either four or five years’ time.
 
Richard Harpin, chief executive, HomeServe, said: “Our investments in Checkatrade and Habitissimo underline HomeServe’s ambition to be at the forefront of the technological revolution as the world’s most trusted provider of home repairs and improvements.  Both of these businesses provide innovative digital platforms, connecting customers to reliable tradespeople.  

“With leading positions in the home repair and improvements market, these businesses will broaden HomeServe’s reach enabling us to meet the needs of younger, non-insurance minded customers who are looking to find immediate help from a wide range of home trades.
 
“Together, these investments open up exciting new possibilities to help our customers in their homes as we continue to develop our online capabilities and digital platform solutions.”

Checkatrade and Habitissimo have access to around 24,000 and 21,000 tradespeople respectively, which combined with HomeServe’s existing networks, will give the group access to more than over 50,000 Certified Home Experts across a range of over 20 trades.
 
The existing management teams of both companies will remain with the businesses, continuing to lead their development as part of HomeServe.
 
The acquisitions were financed through existing cash resources.
 
HomeServe added that it continued to trade in line with management expectations and expected to deliver good growth by year-end in March.
 

Click here to sign up to receive our new South West business news...
Close