$4.5 Billion Adevinta Deal Being Drawn Up as North America Eyes Europe

Bloomberg has reported that a $4.5 billion loan is being drawn up to finance the buyout of European online classifieds operator, Adevinta.

Goldman Sachs and Apollo Global Management Inc. are working with a group of four other companies—including U.S. lenders Sixth Street, HPS Investment Partners and ICG Capital—to prepare the loan that will reportedly be used by the Permira and Blackstone consortium to buy out Adevinta.

Bloomberg noted that the deal would be Europe's largest-ever direct lending deal.

The Adevinta takeover story, which became public in September, represents what appears to be the first step of an influx of American investment in the multi-trillion European real estate industry.

Europe's online classifieds industry is looking increasingly attractive for U.S. companies. Should the takeover go ahead it would represent the second large deal made for U.S. money to take over European portals in a short space of time.

Breaking news today confirmed that US-based CoStar is set to acquire British number three portal OnTheMarket for a reported $100M—a matter of weeks after CEO Andy Florance told the Property Portal Watch conference that he was eyeing up an overly fragmented European market.