By Rahul B and Paul Sandle
(Reuters) - Silver Lake is buying Zoopla and PrimeLocation owner ZPG (L:ZPG) for 2.2 billion pounds ($3 billion), delivering a windfall for its largest shareholder the Daily Mail publishing group.
Along with Rightmove (L:RMV), ZPG dominates online searches for property sale and rentals in Britain, with Zoopla's sites carrying listings for nearly 15,000 estate agent branches.
Each ZPG shareholder will get 490 pence in cash, a premium of 31 percent over Thursday close, in an agreed deal, U.S. private equity firm Silver Lake said on Friday.
Silver Lake, with around $39 billion in assets under management, said ZPG, whose websites and apps attract more than 50 million visits a month, was a great growth technology story.
Shares in ZPG, which also owns utility price comparison website uSwitch, were up about 30 percent to 486.4 pence after ZPG directors said in a joint statement they considered the terms of the deal "fair and reasonable".
ZPG's largest shareholder with a near 30 percent stake is Daily Mail and General Trust (L:DMGOa), publisher of Britain's Daily Mail newspaper, which also backed the deal.
The directors of ZPG, who own 1.16 pct of the firm, also backed the takeover, which Ian Whittaker at Liberum, who has a "buy" rating on ZPG, said showed that buyers were prepared to pay "punchy multiples" for high quality assets.
"The question now is whether there is a counter-bid. If there is one, we think the most likely candidate is Axel Springer (DE:SPRGn), which has a collection of online property classified assets throughout assets but nothing in the UK."
ZPG was advised by Credit Suisse (SIX:CSGN) and Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS).