Alma Talent becomes majority shareholder of DIAS
Alma Media Corporation Press release 30 December 2020
ALMA TALENT BECOMES MAJORITY SHAREHOLDER OF DIAS
In a share transaction concluded on 30 December 2020, Alma Talent Oy has increased its shareholding in digital housing transaction service DIAS Oy to 80.5 per cent. Tomorrow Tech, the founding company and current majority shareholder of DIAS Oy, sold its 57.1 per cent shareholding in DIAS to Alma Talent in full. In addition, the founding banks OP, Danske Bank A/S, Aktia Bank Abp and S-Pankki Oyj sold in total 18.4 per cent of the company’s shares. The aforementioned banks retain 19.5 per cent of the company’s share capital. Previously, Alma Talent owned 5 per cent of DIAS Oy.
The purchase price of the acquired shares on net debt free basis is 14.3 million euros. The parties have also agreed on a potential earn-out linked to the future development of DIAS’s business operations and profitability
Founded in 2018, DIAS is a digital housing trading platform for the residential real estate market connecting buyers, sellers, real estate agents and banks. DIAS is one of the first distributed ledger technology (DLT) services to be completed in Finland. In 2020, the company’s turnover will amount to approximately EUR 2 million.
A total of approximately 125,000 apartment and residential property transactions take place annually in Finland. DIAS has enabled digital housing sales since 2019. At present, DIAS covers over 3,000 real estate agents and nearly the entire Finnish mortgage market. The number of DIAS transactions has increased steadily throughout 2020, and interest in the service has grown with the coronavirus epidemic.
DIAS continues to provide equal service for all parties in the value chain of digital housing sales in order to offer an increasingly consistent user experience.
- The digital transformation is progressing rapidly in all areas of life, including housing. Owned by Alma, Etuovi.com has been a pioneer in the field since the turn of the century. Not only has digitalisation become part of property advertising, but it has also become part of the transactions themselves. DIAS has made digital housing trade accessible to everyone in Finland, while changing the traditional business models and operating environment of companies in the sector,” says Alma Talent CEO Juha-Petri Loimovuori and continues
- DIAS complements Alma’s housing service package and, by joining our forces, we will be able to deliver better services to our customers. The service makes life easier for home buyers and sellers by saving time spent on transactions. At the same time, it significantly enhances the work processes of real estate agents and banks.
Founding shareholder Sami Honkonen will continue as CEO of DIAS for a set period of time to ensure the smooth transfer of operations to Alma.
- DIAS has succeeded in establishing exceptional collaboration with the entire industry, and it is great that this work will be continued by Alma. We have lengthy experience working with Alma, and we believe that the pace of digitalisation in the housing sector will now accelerate even further,” says Sami Honkonen, CEO of Digitaalinen Asuntokauppa DIAS Oy.
More information:
Juha-Petri Loimovuori, CEO, Alma Talent Oy, tel. +358 10 665 2360
Sami Honkonen, CEO, Digitaalinen Asuntokauppa DIAS Oy, tel. +358 40 535 3463
Alma Media in brief
Alma Media is an innovative media group focusing on digital services and journalistic content. The company’s best-known brands are Kauppalehti, Talouselämä, Iltalehti, Etuovi.com and Monster. Alma Media generates sustainable growth from media to services, providing content and services that benefit users in their everyday lives, work and leisure time. Alma Media operates in 11 European countries. Alma Media employs approximately 1,500 professionals. The company’s turnover from continuing operations in 2019 was EUR 250.2 million. Alma Media’s shares are listed on NASDAQ Helsinki. Read more: www.almamedia.fi.
In addition to Etuovi and DIAS, among Alma’s other housing services are the KIVI real estate brokerage system and the account management system MyyntiPRO. Alma Talent provides background information, documents and real estate transaction prices for housing and real estate transactions, as well as a map service directly to the customers’ own systems. In addition, Alma Talent’s real estate drafting service can draft the documents needed for real estate transactions and initiate the process of electronic signing of contracts of sale.