Moneysupermarket has today acquired Quidco, the UK’s second largest cashback business which has around one million transacting users.
It offers cashback at around 4,500 merchants including retail, travel and switching services.
The initial price tag is £87 million with a further £14 million deferred.
Chief executive Peter Duffy said: “Moneysupermarket exists to help households save money. Today we’ve added a broad and compelling cashback offer. We welcome Quidco: a profitable, successful business, with strong consumer engagement and high growth potential.”
AJ Bell’s Danni Hewson said:
Moneysupermarket’s third quarter update was the very definition of mixed but ultimately there was enough in the statement and the company’s latest acquisition to please the market.
“The comparison site relies on people switching their insurance, banking or utilities provider for its revenue.
“The current energy crisis means there are very few attractive deals for people looking to change their heating and power supplier and the failure of smaller operators has left people loath to move anyway.
“This is a problem which isn’t going away for Moneysupermarket but the good news is it pretty heavily diversified across different sectors and there was a notable recovery in the travel insurance space after a heavily disrupted 2020.
“There were signs of the ongoing cutthroat competition in the price comparison space which had a notable impact on Moneysupermarket’s car and home insurance business.
“However, deals on credit cards and other financial products seemed to be doing the trick for this part of the business with the net result that it was almost back to its pre-pandemic levels.
“The relatively modest-sized acquisition of cashback firm Quidco could have an outsized impact on Moneysupermarket.
“Quidco adds a new string to the bow for the company and Moneysupermarket should be able to use its own considerable skills and expertise to accelerate growth.”
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