UK-based price comparison website Moneysupermarket (and Chrysalis' client) has agreed to the conditional purchase of MoneySavingExpert, a finincial advice site, for £87m ($113m).




The deal is being reported as £60m initally, with a cash-plus-shares contract rising to £87m if certain performance targets are met over the next three years.

MoneySavingExpert's founder, Martin Lewis, will remain editor-in-chief and retain autonomy over the site, with the company continuing to work independently on a day-to-day basis. Lewis, a personal finance journalist, launched MoneySavingExpert in 2003 and is donating £10m of the deal to charity.

The MSE website had approximately 39 million unique visitors and approximately 277 million page impressions in the year ended 31 October 2011. The weekly email is sent to around 5 million addresses, with all recipients having opted in to get it. In the year ended 31 October 2011, MoneySavingExpert reported revenues of £15.773 million (2010: £11.361 million).

Martin Lewis was justifiably delighted.

"This is great news for MoneySavingExpert.com and its users, ensuring, with or without me, the site will be around for many years to come, maintaining our ethos of 'cutting your costs and fighting your corner'. MoneySavingExpert.com has become part of people's daily lives, far bigger than the man who founded it, and now is the right time for it to stand on its own two feet.

"I chose MoneySupermarket to work with as I know and trust them. They understand the site, as they've shown by agreeing the Editorial Code, which ensures our content can proudly remain editorially independent and free from commercial considerations."
Peter Plumb, CEO of MoneySupermarket, agreed: "We've worked closely together for years with the common goal of helping customers save money. By joining forces we can get more people to save more money. We'll help MoneySavingExpert reach a wider audience and it will broaden the range of advice and tools we offer, encouraging even more people to take action, tap into the benefits of the internet to find a better deal and make the most of their money.

"MoneySavingExpert is rightly trusted by its users as a unique source of independent information and views in today's complex financial world. We are committed to maintaining its trusted, independent reputation MoneySupermarket will continue to source even better unique product offerings for customers and further our goal of saving more customers more money in our quest to save UK consumers £2bn a year by 2014."