Bankrate will pay $4.4 million to add Mortgagecalc.com, Mortgage-calc.com, and Mortgagemath.com to its growing portfolio of Web sites, the company said today as it announced a second-quarter drop in revenue and page views.
The company’s flagship site, Bankrate.com, attracted more than 46 million unique visitors last year, funneling many to lenders and financial institutions offering mortgages, home equity loans, credit cards, car loans, and money market, CDs and checking accounts. Bankrate also owns Mortgage Market Information Services Inc. and Interest.com Inc., which publish mortgage guides, and Internet lead aggregator FastFind.
Bankrate reported second-quarter revenue of $19.7 million, a 59 percent increase from the same quarter last year, but a slight drop from the $19.8 million reported last quarter. The 116 million page views during the quarter represented a 7 percent drop from the previous quarter, the company said.
Revenue Bankrate generates from its mortgage tables grew by 13 percent, while revenue connected to information about bank deposit interest rates nearly quadrupled, “Evidence of the elasticity of our business,” said Thomas R. Evans, president and chief executive officer.
The deal to acquire Mortgagecalc.com and its sister sites is subject to the approval of Bankrate’s board of directors but is expected to close within a week, the company said. Traffic from the sites, which are owned and operated by East West Mortgage Inc., “will help fuel our display and hyperlink ad sales,” Evans said.
