Apax makes Canadian acquisition

Private equity firm Apax Partners has agreed to purchase Canadian business Trader Corporation from Yellow Media.

The assets being acquired from Yellow Media, which owns Yellow Pages Group and Canpages, for $745 million (£464 million) comprise of automotive classified site AutoTrader.ca and 30 per cent of automotive dealer marketing service Dealer.com.

Apax already own the UK-based Trader Media Group, whose titles include Auto Trader.

Mitch Truwit, partner at Apax comments: ‘This is a very exciting online opportunity in a sector that Apax knows well thanks to our existing investments in Trader Media Group in the UK, Bankrate in the US and SouFun in China.

Since January 2010 Apax has exited a number of whole or part investments including Tommy Hilfiger and Bezeq raising a total of $4.7 billion.

Nick Britton

Nick was the Managing Editor for growthbusiness.co.uk when it was owned by Vitesse Media, before moving on to become Head of Investment Group and Editor at What Investment and thence to Head of Intermediary... More by Nick Britton