Naspers, Through its Indian Subsidiary, ibiboGroup Acquires redBus.in

New Delhi, June 21,2013 /PRNewswire/ --

IbiboGroup (MIH India) has executed a binding agreement to acquire India's leading online Bus ticketing business, redBus.in (Pilani Soft Labs Pvt. Ltd.) for an undisclosed amount.

This transaction will expand and diversify ibiboGroup's existing travel assets: Goibibo.com (one of the leading B2C Online travel aggregators) and TravelBoutiqueOnline (a B2B Online travel platform that enables thousands of small and medium agents)

The combined volumes of redBus.in and ibiboGroup's existing travel assets makes the group, one of the biggest online travel players in India.

All the travel entities of ibiboGroup (MIH India), including redBus.in, will continue to run independently and operate as separate businesses to drive deep focus. The founders and management teams of each of these entities will continue to build out their businesses. 

redBus.in, founded by Phanindra Sama in 2006, is India's number one online bus ticketing platform by all metrics: sales, transaction volumes and available inventory. redBus aggregates bus inventory from thousands of bus operators and makes it available real time to end consumers and agents across the country via its e-commerce portal www.redBus.in.

redBus aggregates 228,000 seats per day, sells more than a million tickets a month and has 600+ full time employees.  The core business model of redBus is commission revenues on successful transactions.

Speaking on this event, Phanindra Sama, Co-Founder & CEO of redBus.in said, "We are excited to be a part of ibiboGroup. Naspers' strong belief in internet industry and operating experience in multiple countries will help redBus grow into a renowned brand in the coming years."

According to Ashish Kashyap, CEO of ibiboGroup: "Our key motivations to acquire redBus are: Strong management and founding team that will continue to run redBus as an independent operation. Second, significant leadership and market share of redBus in the online bus ticketing space. Third, this marriage leap frogs us to become an even stronger online travel player in India. This gives us significant combined scale in terms of daily transaction volumes and GMV. Lastly, we see this as an exciting market opportunity. Online penetration of the bus market is only 5.7% compared to 28% for air travel, suggesting headroom for rapid future growth."

About redBus (Pilani Soft Labs Pvt. Ltd.)

Pilani Soft Labs Pvt. Ltd. founded by 3 BITS-Pilani graduates, Phanindra Sama, Charan Padmaraju, Sudhakar Pasupunuri owns three products - redBus™, BOSS™, SeatSeller™ - serving the fragmented bus industry in India. redBus™ is consumer facing travel brand enabling customers to buy tickets on internet, on mobile, and through call centers. BOSS™ is ERP solution built for bus operators. Over 800 bus operators in India use BOSS to manage their inventory. SeatSeller™ is GDS for bus inventory distribution. Over 10,000 retail agents and 100+ corporates including the OTAs use SeatSeller to sell bus tickets to their customers. Pilani Soft Labs Pvt. Ltd is venture funded by Seedfund (www.seedfund.in), Inventus (www.inventuscap.com) and Helion (www.helionvc.com).

About ibiboGroup (MIH India)

ibiboGroup's mission is to "enable trusted transactions". ibiboGroup was founded by Ashish Kashyap in 2007. The company is one of the top e-Commerce group's in India in terms of volume and value of transactions, touching the lives of millions of buyers, sellers, merchants and suppliers. The group owns India's leading B2C travel asset, Goibibo.com and a significant interest in B2B travel aggregator, TravelboutiqueOnline. Other portfolio businesses of the group comprise : PayU India (India's Number one e-commerce payment aggregator), Tradus.com (Online marketplace) and Gaadi.com (Auto marketplace).

About Naspers    

Founded in 1915, Naspers is a leading multinational media and internet group with operations in more than 133 countries. Listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) since September 1994, it also has an ADR listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE). .The group's principal operations are in e-commerce, pay-television & related technologies and print media. It also has minority investments in listed, integrated social-network platforms Tencent (SEHK 0700) and Mail.ru (LSE: MAIL).

Advisors in this transaction    

Law firms: Amarchand and Mangaldas, Mumbai ; IndusLaw, Bangalore

Investment bankers: Avendus Financial Advisors, Mumbai

Due diligence partners: Deloitte India

Tax advisors: KPMG, Mumbai

Primary Media Contact: Priyanka Sharma, [email protected], 91-98996-53162