RentPath announced today that it has terminated the agreement to be acquired by CoStar Group following the FTC's decision to sue to block the transaction. The FTC filed suit because it believes that RentPath presents a strong competitive alternative to CoStar and the merger would have eliminated that competition to the detriment of customers. The Company believes termination of the agreement is in the best interests of its customers, employees and all of its stakeholders. The Company's Chapter 11 plan remains backed by its lenders including well-known alternative asset management firms with billions of dollars under management and strong track records of successfully investing in businesses in similar circumstances. The lenders are committed to the Company's long-term vision and believe that management's renewed focus on delivering significant value to customers through RentPath's core apartment search platform and other high growth products will also benefit investors and other stakeholders.
"RentPath provides tremendous value to our customers across the multifamily industry. In fact, our value proposition has never been better than it is today. Our traffic and leads have never been higher, and they continue to grow rapidly -- traffic growth in the second half of 2020 has exceeded 40% year over year for the RentPath network. We have a range of high growth products that complement our core apartment search websites, and we are excited to emerge from restructuring and continue to build on this foundation," said Dhiren Fonseca, RentPath's CEO.
"RentPath has made significant progress and is on an upward trajectory despite an undoubtedly challenging 2020. The market for real estate technology businesses continues to be very strong as recent M&A transactions have highlighted. RentPath has developed and positioned its products to occupy a fundamentally critical point in the residential rental value chain. RentPath has unique assets and extensive relationships, which recent activity has shown will realize full value in the market," said Stephen Spencer, Managing Director at Houlihan Lokey and advisor to RentPath's lenders.
"On behalf of all of our colleagues at RentPath, I'd like to thank our customers and partners for their continued loyalty and support," said Fonseca. "We look forward to continuing to extend and expand our relationships with our customers, and provide an efficient platform for property owners and operators to achieve and maintain maximum occupancy rates in 2021 and beyond."
