• by Ray Schultz , December 19, 2017

GoCompare, the UK comparison shopping site, will acquire MyVoucherCodes, the retail voucher firm, for £36.5 million. Included in the purchase from Monitise Limited are eight million email addresses and the email marketing firm Revive.

The purchase is on a cash-free, debt-free basis, and is expected to close in January, the company says. It is being financed with existing cash resources and an extension to GoCompare's existing credit facilities.

GoCompare is known for its ads featuring the fictional tenor Gio Compario,

MyVoucherCodes achieves 45 million annual visits and is expected to generate revenue of £11.8 million and pre-tax profits of £4 million this year. It drove £350m of retailer revenue for the year ended in June 2017.

GoCompare estimates that the combined group will achieve almost 100 million website visits per year.

The purchase includes MyVoucherCodes’ subsidiaries, including Revivve and the food discovery app Happiour.

Most of MyVoucherCodes’ revenue comes from the UK, but it also has sites in Australia, Ireland, Germany and France.

"MyVoucherCodes has achieved significant scale in the UK over the last 10 years and the Acquisition brings relationships with some of the largest online retailers in the UK across numerous industries, including ASOS, Sky, Expedia and many more,” states Faisal Galaria, chief strategy and investment Officer at GoCompare. “It also provides a platform that we can leverage for further growth."

The MyVoucherCodes management team is expected to remain in place.

GoCompare expects to post revenue of £149 million for 2017, a 5% hike over 2016.