By Stuart Condie

SYDNEY--U.S. real-estate analytics provider CoStar secured exclusive access to the books at Australia's Domain, advancing its hopes of a US$1.92 billion takeover of the country's second-largest property advertiser.

Domain on Monday said it had granted CoStar four weeks of exclusive due diligence so that the operator of U.S. portals including Homes.com can formalize its offer. The access can be extended by another two weeks if necessary, Domain said.

Last week, CoStar raised its proposed offer to 4.43 Australian dollars a share, equivalent to about US$2.79. That was up 5.5% on the A$4.20 it initially proposed last month.

CoStar said that was as high as it would go in the absence of a rival bidder.

Domain reiterated that its board planned to unanimously recommend the proposal and to vote in favor.

Nine Entertainment, the Australian media conglomerate that owns 60% of Domain's shares, has already said that it backed the Domain board's decision to engage with CoStar.

CoStar's revised proposal comes 15 months after it completed a US$125 million takeover of OnTheMarket, one of the U.K.'s three most-visited residential property portals. At the time, CoStar Chief Executive Andy Florance said his company would integrate OnTheMarket into its network and invest millions of dollars in the U.K. business.

Domain has long labored unsuccessfully to overcome REA Group's first-mover advantage in Australian online property classifieds. News Corp-controlled REA, still the No. 1 player, has a market capitalization of about US$19 billion.

CoStar, which doesn't have any existing regional interests, could seek to leverage its existing tech stack to boost Domain's engagement with consumers. Last year, CoStar bought 3-D property mapping provider Matterport in a US$1.6 billion deal, acquiring the ability to offer virtual property tours to potential buyers.

News Corp owns Dow Jones & Co., publisher of this newswire and The Wall Street Journal.

Write to Stuart Condie at stuart.condie@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 30, 2025 18:02 ET (22:02 GMT)

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