Icecat acquires Swedish reviews aggregator Testseek

Icecat takes over all shares in FMP Publishing A.B., the Swedish-based global aggregator and syndicator of professional and consumer product reviews, active under the name Testseek. Icecat buys out the current shareholders: founder Fredrik Engdahl and investor Netvalue BV.

Icecat and Testseek have been working together for clients such as Intel since 2012, combining product data and product reviews for the customers’ ecommerce and online marketing environments. Reviews data affects the purchasing decision of consumers and professional buyers. The subscriptions to Testseek product reviews are mainly sold within the IT & Electronics industry. “But, we also see that outside of this important ecommerce category, product reviews are hot, and therefore we think that the Testseek service can quickly scale up to other categories,” says Emre Tan, managing director Icecat.

“Testseek and Icecat have been working together successfully for a long time,” says Fredrik Engdahl, “and it was the most logical exit partner, also because a significant part of the turnover was generated through the Icecat network.”

The operational activities of FMP Publishing will be transferred to Icecat after the acquisition and will be fully integrated within the processes and systems of Icecat. For at least a year Fredrik Engdahl will stay on as the CEO of the Swedish organization.

The shares in FMP Publishing will be acquired by Icecat Content Sourcing OÜ, the Estonian subsidiary of Icecat NV. The acquisition will be fully funded from the positive annual profit of Icecat, meaning that no negative effect on the cash reserves is expected during 2019. Icecat will consolidate the financial results of the activities in the course of 2019 within Icecat N.V. The expected impact on the consolidated turnover is approximately + 1.5% to 2%, but of course dependent on the further growth, and there will be a modest positive effect on the profit. The integration costs are also expected to be modest, due to the already existing multi-year cooperation.

Netvalue is via investment company iMerge B.V. also participant and director of Icecat. Managing director Emre Tan therefore acted in this transaction on behalf of Icecat.

About FMP Publishing A.B.

FMP Publishing was founded in December 2008 and initially operated a number of reviews portals. Due to changes in the search engine market, the business model shifted to offering subscriptions to aggregate review data for manufacturers and resellers, who then integrate this data into their own ecommerce environments. In 2013, Netvalue BV acquired a 50% share and bought out – except for Fredrik Engdahl – the other minority shareholders, who retained the other 50%.