Financial content bohemoth and web calculator tool provider Bankrate signed a definitive agreement to purchase two companies - Interest.com and Fastfind.com. Not being familiar with the former, Interest.com appears to be more mortgage-focused than Bankrate and a second-tier competitor to them. Their model relies more on site-based advertising rather than Bankrate's combination of site-based ads and licensing fees for use of their tools.
Fastfind.com, whose founders come from GetSmart (purchased by Lending Tree who bought it from Providian) makes sense for Bankrate but could worry companies like LoanWeb, LowerMyBills.com, NexTag, and other mortgage lead gen advertisers. While expensive, Bankrate's inventory provides quality leads. The acquisition of Fastfind gives Bankrate in-house competence to monetize their own traffic and take that margin as their own. It looks like after years of seeing these advertiser make money off their site and now having the resources to do something about it, Bankrate has.
Bankrate has a market cap just north of $500 million and $40 million cash with no debt. Their revenues grew from $26 million in '02 to $36 million in '03 to $39 million in '04. The stock is up more than two-fold since April of this year. Analysts predict the company to do $57 million this year, and Bankrate has increased their guidance for 2006 to roughly $80 million.
