Record deal in online sector: Autovit.ro website sold for 5 million euros

The biggest second hand car sales website on the domestic market, autovit.ro, has been bought by the Naspers giant, one of the biggest media companies in the world, based in South Africa, in a deal worth more than 4.7 million euros, sources on the market say.
As a result, four Romanians collected more than one million euros each: Cornel Parvu, Florea Parvu, Florian Nila and Irina Nila. They each owned 25% in Visual Soft, the owner of the autovit.ro website. The company was sold to MIH Allegro BV, a subsidiary of the African group.
This is one of the biggest deals on the online market, second only to the sale of the neogen.ro portal to investment funds Tiger Global Management and Wouver Investeringen for 6 million euros in 2007.
The four Visual Soft shareholders also own the second-hand car market Autovit in Bucharest (Vitan-Barzesti road), the biggest such market in Romania.
The buyer, the Naspers group, which posted 2 billion euros in revenues in 2008, was assisted by law firm Danila, Petre si Asociatii in this deal, while sellers had Dojana si Asociatii as legal advisors.
The autovit.ro classified advertisement website was launched almost ten years ago and currently displays some 18,000 ads for the sale of vehicles, motorcycles, trucks, coaches, spare parts and accessories. The site is a virtual projection of the auto market in Vitan.
Autovit.ro has more than 72,000 visitors every day and is the top ranking site in the automotive category and the 22nd most visited of all the Romanian sites. More than 2.2 million people have gone to autovit.ro over the past month. Trafic.ro statistics show 50 clicks per visitor on average.
What is its business model? Those who want to sell their vehicle post ads, which cost 1.5 euros plus VAT for a 15-day display period, which can be paid via SMS. Under the circumstances, the revenues of the website exceed 630,000 euros per year, but maintenance costs do not exceed 100,000 euros.