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Bill Rice is the CEO of Kaleidico, a leader in lead management systems. Prior to founding Kaleidico he was the VP of National Home Equity and the Home Loan Benefit program at Quicken Loans and one of the founding executives of DeepGreen Bank, an Internet-only bank that was one of the first and (at that time) largest buyers of LendingTree leads in early 2000.

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Bankrate gobbling up bargain Internet properties?

February 13th, 2008 • Related • Filed Under
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Bankrate recently completes two acquisitions of InsureMe, Inc. (insureme.com) and Lower Fees, Inc. (feedisclosure.com). It continues a trend of paired acquisitions that included the 4th quarter 2007 purchase of  National Card Services, Inc. and Savingforcollege.com, LLC and a pair of late 2005 deals to take in FastFind and MMIS/Interest.com.

The 2007/2008 acquisitions certainly demonstrate a strategy to diversify out of the mortgage vertical and an investor noted concentration risk:

Still, shareholders weren’t impressed, and Bankrate dropped 8.9% to $49.02 in extended-hours trading, with the earnings shortfall contributing to the selling. In the regular session, the stock fell 5.6% to $53.68.

However, I personally have never been impressed with the way they seem to simple have a survival of the fittest attitude for their acquired properties. FastFind and Interest.com kind of looks like my son’s elementary school class built the website and threw up some LowerMyBills.com banners. My guess is that these are more property/traffic bargain hunting than true corporate acquisitions.

Paul Knag has a bit deeper analysis of the FeeDisclosure.com acquisition.

In total though you have to hand it to Thomas Evans and Bankrate.com they certainly know how to steer a ship in troubled mortgage waters.

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