The South African media giant, Naspers, has bought the Russian version of Gumtree: Slando, for an undisclosed amount. The original founders of Gumtree, Michael Pennington and Simon Crookall, confirmed the deal overnight. The site has 11 million users, and has sold items including Stalin’s clothing, a slew of diamonds, a MIG 21 aircraft and one whole oil refinery.

The British entrepreneurs, Pennington and Crookall, initially started their online classified business with Gumtree in 2000 before selling it to eBay in 2005.

Then, they set up Slando in 2006 with eBay taking a 20 percent stake outright.

Pennington explained in the statement:

We spotted a massive opportunity in Eastern Europe and Russia, particularly because Internet usage was so low. Over the past few years it has grown exponentially and will continue to do so.

Crookall, whose remarkable surname has nothing to do with what it might sound like if you mouth it slowly, continued:

Many of the lessons we learned in setting up developing Gumtree [have enabled it to become] as dominant in Russia and the Ukraine as Gumtree has done in the UK and beyond.

Presently, the London-based Slando is active in 10 Eastern Europe countries, Portugal and Brazil and has 11 million users in Russia and Eastern Europe alone.

The two entrepreneurs will remain in their roles to oversee the integration over the next six months before moving on to another venture.

The gap that Naspers has seen is that Russian internet usage is predicted to grow from its current 40 percent, to more than 70 percent in the coming years.

Naspers already has a portfolio of internet firms, and also bought a 29 percent stake in mail.ru, the Russian group, formerly known as Digital Sky Technologies. Mail.ru owns stakes in other online successes like Facebook and the games portal, Zynga.

[Source: TheIndependent]