MSE Discussion: MoneySavingExpert.com to join the MoneySupermarket.com group

Lube

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/consumertips/9304842/Martin-Lewis-sells-MoneySavingExpert-website-for-87m.html

Mr Lewis owns 100pc of the business and is expected to receive £35m in cash and around 22.1m shares in MoneySupermarket.com.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2153184/Moneysaving-millionaire-Martin-Lewis-sells-Moneysavingexpert-Moneysupermarket-87m.html

u704446

"I am going to unsubscribe in protest" .... but then look at the website. Pathetic.

Oneday77

At least here has a tangible value. I bet Facebook investors wish it was as profitable per subscribed user.

idontdrinkmagners

Fair play to the man, I've always found the site to be clear about how it makes its revenue and if anything it has taught me to be more cynical and question everything about parting with my hard-earned.

I would personally question impartiality in the long run, but in the short-term given his involvement and that of the editorial and research team he has built up, I doubt we would see any changes. Afterall Money Supermarket will want a return on investment, and that is not going to come via an immediate alienation of the sites core users.

I hope the forum remains in place and people continue to use it as a source of help, advice or inspiration. Only time will tell if site moderators become slightly more editorially biased....

meher

Moneysavingsupermarket is going to pinch this sites' articles; they better pay decent royalties. Each time anyone clicks and gets to mse through that site, they should pay. Actually it is this site which should've bought that insignficant little site. Now that's something I'd class as shrewd. Isn't that just a comparison site? Is there anything else on it? Genuine uestion. Really, there's someone shrewd in their team. May be we should find who it is and woo them to mse and rid off the spare parts here and dissolve from this partnership.

artumi_richard

On Radio5, Martin on the business logic is: "Secures supplier of links status".

Also "if editorial guidelines broken - I will leave". Therefore when MoneySupermarket want to turn this into cash the only thing they have to do is tell Martin to clear off.

whitelabel

think of how much ms will save having to pay in revenue to mse for referal links that are already posted

plus it, instead of martin will get the £15million+ a year other revenue it makes.... that will be its return

saving made on shared services eg HR, insurance etc and it should be a win situation without compromising the founding beliefs of the site

I did have to laugh at this pic though

Sosdon

Shocking news , sold out !!
The spam will start , independence will be lost , seen it with other sites , every things cool for a few months , then the screws are tightened , sad day .....:(

Lube

He just said he is going to be more consumer champion in media and have more help on here so he can do that

ScarletBea

I'm in 2 minds about this.

First, I don't trust MoneySupermarket as much as I did in the past, because several times now in the savings search (usually the only one I use), they ignore lots of better deals, and it seems they only show specific institutions, it's not a widespread market analysis as in the past.

Then, I think MSE's strength is the forum.
The site is useful of course, but you don't check it every day, do you? And once you've switched energy companies, insurance, etc, you know the drill and don't need explaining anymore.
Also, the weekly mail is quite disappointing: it assumes people are just spending, spending, spending, to be honest, I haven't really used anything there for months now.
So in the end, you can have a forum anywhere, linked or not to a specific site. So if enough people move out, and I'm talking about the most prolific and interesting posters, then this site will become really slow, and not very interesting.
So will the targets be achieved? I doubt it...

On the other hand, well done Martin for creating a business out of a little thing. Of course you don't have 100% of the credit, but without your initial idea, there wouldn't be the fuss we're having now.