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

raddyantic

This hasn't surprised me at all Mr Lewis Controversially decided to hide his earnings by changing his company's status from limited to unlimited a few years back.

And ultimately this is nothing but a complete sell-out and just for the money - a new independent site needs to be launched - there's definitley a gap in the market now. And I for one don't see the point of the site anymore - it's a shame was one of the only good things for consumers on the net.

I guess money really does have no conscience.

PheoUK

Presuming that the site revenue info is correct, MSupermarket are paying out 59% of 16m every year to MSE.

Accordingly, they can now minimise this spend without doing anything other than paying to run the site (i.e. they just pay the op-ex)

At the moment revenue maximisation does not appear to be the aim - they can simply continue to run the site as normal, and take advantage of what I consider to be a considerable cost reduction - £10m per year in costs while the site continues to make revenue from their competitors.

Its really no different to many companies with multiple daughter companies e.g. TestoCompare vs Tesco Insurance etc etc.

SailorSam

raddyantic wrote: »

And ultimately this is nothing but a complete sell-out and just for the money -

I guess money really does have no conscience.

And if you started a business today which became successful in 8yrs time what would you do if you were asked to sell.

teddyco

Martin Lewis would make an excellent politician! Like Tony Blair, He's already mastered the art of pretending to be on the side of the common man while secretly siding with the rich.

Martin, I think you just lost all your credibility on this deal, mate!

Occy

Fifer wrote: »

There's a question missing from the Q&A. "What's in in for MoneySupermarket.com and how will they make a return on their massive investment?"

Well... is it a massive investment?

to quote the BBC article:

In the 12 months to the end of last October, MoneySavingExpert generated revenues of nearly £16m from 39 million users.

Of this income, about 59% was earned from referral fees paid by MoneySupermarket.

This would imply that MS was paying MSE close to £10m a year so buying out MSE effectively saves them that £10m + they get the other £6m on top, I am sure there isn't many other ways to achieve an 18% annual return on your investment.

Fairychild

Congrats Martin. :T

Ignorant to think that anything comes for free. If you are not the client and paying you are the product. This was the case whether MSE was sold or not.

Patr100

teddyco wrote: »

Martin Lewis would make an excellent politician! Like Tony Blair, He's already mastered the art of pretending to be on the side of the common man while secretly siding with the rich.

Martin, I think you just lost all your credibility on this deal, mate!

Still posting? Thought you wanted to be deleted from the forum. Where's your
credibility?

Quote:
Originally Posted by teddyco
Just unsubscribed from the weekly email and deleted past posts!

Quote:
Originally Posted by teddyco
Maybe Martin Lewis will tell us how we can request that our forum name be permanently deleted?

raddyantic

SailorSam wrote: »

And if you started a business today which became successful in 8yrs time what would you do if you were asked to sell.

It depends on what line of business I was in - if I opened up a chain of coffee shops that became successful then yeah I'd sell. If I owned a consumer website which many people used and loved for its impartiality then perhaps I wouldn't decide to sell to a commercial institution. If I did then it's be maybe to one that would be more sympathetic to the ethics and ethos of the site - then again I am not in that position.

After all is said and done it's upto the owners what to do and if it's to sell then so be it. But I take umbrage to being told that the site will still be independent - as no matter how you spin it - that just can’t be the case as ultimately their has to be a commercial realisation of investment for the investors.

bradgirl

Very disappointing news but we saw what Martin Lewis's morals were when he continued to want to write his column (and more importantly be paid for it) for the News Of The World even when the awful things about it came to light. Having said that, I can't imagine many people would or could have turned down this kind of offer and we all have an opportunity to exercise our right to unsubscribe from the mailing list at any time if we don't like the direction taken.

adwat

Well done Martin. But I've unsubscribed and will now delete my profile.

Anyone fancy setting up an independent replacement for MoneySavingExpert?