Current status Active | Founded 1987 | |
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Subsidiaries Visitenet.com, Bargain Finder, Que Facil Alicante SL Profiles | ||
Trader Classified Media is one of the largest classified advertising companies in the world. It was founded in 1987 by John MacBain and currently operates over 575 print titles and 56 websites in 20 countries. The company focuses particularly on the automotive, real estate, jobs and general merchandise sectors. The company lists over 25 million items of content in 90 million ads each year. Based in Canada, it went public in March 2000 as Trader.com on NASDAQ and in Paris, and currently employs 7,500 people.
Trader Corporation was formed in June 2006 with the integration of Classified Media (Canada) Holdings Inc. (Trader Canada) and Trader Media Corporation (TMC). The two companies were acquired by Yellow Pages Income Fund that same year. In March 2011, Yellow Pages sold Trader Corporation to funds advised by Apax Partners for $745 million. In 2016, Apax sold Trader to Thoma Bravo. Trader Corporation is present throughout Canada and has approximately 1,280 employees.
Trader Corporation’s brand portfolio includes: Auto Trader, Auto Hebdo, Buy&Sell, The Bargain Finder, homeTRADER and VisiteNet.
International
In August 2005, The Sunday Times (UK) newspaper reported that both Google and Yahoo! have approached in company as a potential take-over or tie-up.
In July 2006 Forbes reported that Scandinavian media company [1] Schibsted ASA has finalised the acquisition of parts of Trader Classified Media NV in Spain, Latin America, France, Italy and Switzerland.
In the fourth quarter of 2005, Trader Media East was established comprising the Russian, Baltic, CIS and Eastern European operations of Trader Classified Media.
In February 2006 The Yellow Pages Group, publishers of directories in Canada purchased the Canadian and US assets of Trader Classified Media.