Australian digital conveyancing platform PEXA has announced the intended acquisition of Smoove PLC for £31m. The deal is expected to complete in the final quarter of this year. The deal follows months of extensive negotiations between the parties and will provide “opportunities to cross-sell the PEXA platform to panel firms of Smoove.”
The acquisition will also see a number of Smoove brands come under the PEXA banner; including panel management service e-Conveyancer, Bolton-based Amity Law and Legal Eye.
The move gives PEXA, which launched in the UK in 2020, access to c.75 conveyancer firms who use Smoove’s conveyancing platform, in addition to c.2,100 firms through the work that Smoove does in arranging panels for lenders across the UK market One of the longest standing relationships is with Lloyd’s Bank who Smoove have been supporting since 2007. Smoove also indicate their platform facilitates around 7% share of the UK remortgage market, and 3% of the UK’s sales and purchase market.
PEXA confirmed that talks had started back in April 2023 and have steadily progressed since. In September they announced that former CEO of conveyancing technology provider tmgroup Joe Pepper had joined as UK CEO.
Commenting on the proposed acquisition, PEXA Group CEO and Managing Director, Glenn King said:
“The acquisition is aligned with PEXA Group’s strategy of enhancing and leveraging our property exchange know-how to deliver growth from different markets, including in other Torrens title jurisdictions, starting with the UK.
“Since entering the UK market, the PEXA Group has launched its first re-mortgage product, successfully brought two lenders onto the PEXA platform and acquired and progressed integration of specialist re-mortgage conveyancer, Optima Legal.
“The acquisition and integration of Smoove into the PEXA UK business will further help us address the many detriments suffered by consumers due to the UK’s fragmented, inefficient conveyancing processes. The acquisition will allow us to build additional scale and depth in the UK market, enabling the PEXA product suite to reach more customers, whilst streamlining and improving the UK property transaction experience.”
