The Daily Mail & General Trust, the UK newspaper publisher, which just formed a new national digital media division, has bought out two online businesses for a total of $86.4 million: The two companies are Allegran, a collection of online dating services, and Data Media and Retail, which owns automotive classified portals. The latest deals follow DMGT’s $200 million acquisition last month of Genscape, another new media venture, which supplies real-time information about energy generation to traders in Europe and North America.
Allegran’s dating sites have generated £7.4m in revenues, up twofold on a year ago. DMR, which operates such sites as Carsource.co.uk, has generated £4.3m in revenue since November 2005, a 40 per cent increase on the previous year.
More info on the acquisitions here in the release.