By Stuart Condie

SYDNEY--Domain's recent technology investment leaves Australia's second-largest property advertiser well-placed to grow its near-term audience, its departing chief executive said.

Domain has been engaged in what the Nine Entertainment-controlled company has called a foundational investment in CEO Jason Pellegrino's marketplace strategy.

Pellegrino, who led Google's local business before joining Domain in 2018, pushed the approach in an effort to expand Domain's consumer appeal and grow revenue in a classifieds market dominated by News Corp-controlled REA Group.

Domain used this week's first-half results announcement to flag early signs of success, pointing to 10% on-year growth in unique audience. It said growth in site visits by Domain users had outpaced that of the broader market.

Pellegrino said Friday that he wished that he had begun the investment earlier. His near seven-year tenure, which will end Feb. 28, spanned housing-market uncertainty generated by events including a quasijudicial national inquiry into financial services, the Covid-19 pandemic and 13 interest-rate rises by Australia's central bank.

"We're seeing some extraordinary audience growth in the last six months and really that's on the back of platform investments that were deployed 12 months prior to that. If I had my time again, we probably would move faster on that," Pellegrino said.

"My gut instinct on my learnings would be to move faster where the context allows."

Domain appointed Pellegrino months after it was spun out of publisher Fairfax Media to become an independently listed business.

At the time, Domain was still overexposed to dwindling print revenues that months later forced Fairfax into a merger with Nine, a free-to-air broadcaster that now also runs the largest Australia-based streaming rival to Netflix.

Domain has long labored unsuccessfully to overcome REA's first-mover advantage in Australian online property classifieds. REA's market capitalization of 39 billion Australian dollars, or about US$22.7 billion, is about 19 times larger than that of Domain's.

Pellegrino said he had enjoyed working with majority shareholder Nine's acting CEO, Matt Stanton, but that it was important for him to step away while he still had the energy to lead what he called a complex organization with complex people.

"It is an extraordinarily complex role. There are many stakeholders, there are many visible points of judgment on performance along the way. You try to keep a very broad range of stakeholders happy," he said. Nine owns 60% of Domain.

Pellegrino said he isn't ready to leave executive life for nonexecutive directorships despite multiple opportunities.

Pointing to job advertiser Seek as an Australian business he said had invested well and early in artificial intelligence, Pellegrino said he hoped to help guide digital transformation at another business after Domain.

For now, Pellegrino said former REA CEO Greg Ellis, who is due to replace him on an interim basis, will have plenty to work with at Domain.

"One of the fundamental principles for any quality partnership is to always leave some money on the table. I always leave some upside for the next guy."

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

February 13, 2025 23:00 ET (04:00 GMT)

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