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News & Updates - Thursday, February 7, 2008

Bankrate Pays Up To $85M For InsureMe. Also Buys FeeDisclosure

Bankrate's (Nasdaq: RATE) stock has fallen off recently but investors who bought in a year ago have made bank. The company says it has acquired the assets of two companies in separate transactions, InsureMe of Englewood, CO and Lower Fees (feedisclosure.com) out of Westlake Village, CA.

Fee Disclosure is a real estate disclosure company that give consumers data that might reduce their real estate and mortgage transaction costs. The company also plans to promote and market responsible local real estate service providers.

Fee Disclosure stresses that they do no broker real estate or mortgage transactions nor do they collect a commission or payment on consumer transactions.

If you don't know much about the biz - we don't - Fee Disclosure indicates that US consumers are being charged as much as $53B in real estate closing costs per year, and FeeDisclosure says it is positioned to help save up to $17B in junk fees.

Fee Disclosure was founded by Mark Zimmerman and Mike Kratzer in 2005. They sold the assets of Fee Disclosure for $2.85M in cash plus a cash earn out based on the net revenue achieved over the next five years.

Founded in 1993, InsureMe is in the lead generation business, for insurance of course. It's Web site is connected to a network of hundreds of affiliates that offer consumers insurance rates for auto, home, life, health and long term care. The purchase price for InsureMe was $65M in cash with an additional $20M in cash.