Antony Catalano and partner Alex Waislitz, whose Australian Community Media (ACM) last year purchased 170 regional and rural newspapers, has acquired the largest stake in the national real estate portal www.realestateview.com.au (REV).

This represents another venture for the pair who are currently growing their media portfolio following Catalano joining the board of REV and ACM now holding 26 percent of the online platform.

REV, Australia’s third largest property portal, has undergone a period of rapid transformation and is expected to continue its aggressive growth trajectory with the announcement of Catalano as a board member.

Toby Balazs, REV’s CEO said the opportunity to work with ACM and extend REV’s brand through their network is a clear vote of confidence for the company’s plans.

“With Antony’s strong relationships across the real estate industry and the strong alignment to our ownership structure of publishers, real estate agents and Real Estate Institutes, we’re now excited to bring together this extended suite of assets to deliver true value to agents, vendors and buyers,” Balazs said.

“The opportunity will allow us to further grow our audience and deliver improved results for our customers and REV will launch a number of new initiatives to the market over the next 12 months.

Balazs said the business has achieved some remarkable results in the past 12 months; audience has grown by over 40% and we’ve launched a number of key initiatives, including our Price Estimator experience powered by CoreLogic’s market-leading property data.

Late last year REV successfully completed a capital raise helping to strengthen the business and fuel its focus on delivering choice, cost-effectiveness and flexibility to the property industry.

Catalano spoke confidently of his appointment to the REV board and about the businesses’ potential.

“REV has a range of industry attractions but its most valuable asset is its highly engaged audience. This audience, coupled with the ability to deliver advertising solutions at speed, presents a compelling opportunity to create a multi-pronged media group inclusive of a property portal,” he said.

Provincial Press Group, whose division Winetitles Media publishes to the viticulture and winemaking industry, has been a key investor and partner of REV together with a group of other regional and suburban newspaper publishers since 2017.

Speaking following the announcement, Provincial Press Group chairman Hartley Higgins said the company was pleased to have Anthony Catalano joining the REV board and as a major investor.

“We are particularly excited about the future of REV and the opportunities for leveraging of ACM’s network of over 170 leading rural and regional newspapers and community-based websites across Australia,” he said.

ACM and other media publishers including Provincial Press Group have over 270 suburban and regional newspapers and magazines in circulation.

“By introducing REV to the overall advertising solution, customers across regional and rural Australia will have access to a combined digital audience of 5.4M Australians a month,” he said.

The Real Estate Institute of Victoria and other states also continue to be significant shareholders in REV.