Apparently Sam thinks so – and so do (and did) I, but $700m guaranteed in the hand is much more interesting than maybe a billion in a year.
That $700m got invested remember, and the 12 shareholders were either going to be really wealthy, or, well – really wealthy. What would you have done? especially after the experiences of 2001?
Lance Wiggs 
Sell. Sell. Sell. An extra $300 million would make no difference on an individual basis. As you say – either super wealthly or super weathly!
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We took a view on Trade Me as a potential private equity acquisition back in April.
I don’t think there was a lot of risk for Trade Me remaining independent for a while longer. The more that I look at the business the stronger the franchise looks. I don’t know what the actual motivations for the sale were.
The Trade Me team deserve massive credit – and I don’t think that they ever received enough – for building a high-growth business with stunning margins.
It was a great transaction – for the Trade Me team and New Zealand more generally.
But that people made a lot of money in the original transaction isn’t the point. The global private equity boom had not yet reached NZ when Fairfax bought Trade Me. The Yellow Pages sale showed that sizeable NZ assets are now certainly in play for global private equity funds. Trade Me certainly meets these players requirements for the assets they are looking for.
Trade Me is today worth a lot more than the $700 million of early-2006. If Sam and the team at Trade Me were not frustrated by this – I would be surprised. They deserved to get full value on any transaction. I bet that Fairfax are very very happy with the transaction today.
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