New owner for Dominion Marine Media

Dominion Marine Media, parent company of Boat trader, boats.com, YachtWorld and CosasDeBarcos, is being purchased by a British private equity and venture capital firm.

Funds advised by Apax Partners announced Tuesday that they have entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Dominion Marine Media, from Dominion Enterprises, a subsidiary of Landmark Media Enterprises. The transaction, which is subject to customary closing conditions, is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2016. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

“Our world-class brands have a long tradition of excellence in providing leading digital business solutions for the recreational boating industry,” Dominion Marine Media President Ian Atkins said in a statement. “We are confident that the expertise and resources provided by the Apax team will not only further our mission of driving boat sales globally, but will be essential to our next phase of growth.”

“The recreational marine industry is poised for digital transformation and DMM is the only integrated digital media, technology and data platform positioned to capture this opportunity globally,” said Marcelo Gigliani, partner at Apax Partners. “We are excited to be backing Ian and his team and are eager to leverage our experience investing in and operating leading digital classifieds businesses to accelerate growth at DMM.”

According to the firm, “the Apax Funds are a private equity investor in the digital classifieds/lead generation and digital marketing solutions space, combining extensive digital investment expertise across three continents with operational value-add.”

Other investments of the funds include AutoTrader (UK), Bankrate, Dealer.com and many other companies in the auto, technology, healthcare and retail industries.

Dominion Marine Media was formed in 2010 as a division of Dominion Enterprises. In 2011, Dominion sold several marine industry publications and events to Active Interest Media. According to the company, DMM employs 180 people, has customers in 106 countries and advertises boats for sale in 143 countries.

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