Axel Springer AG, Europe's largest multimedia company yesterday said that it will launch a $629 million (€566 million) public offer to buy all the shares of SeLoger.com SA, a operator of property classifieds portals in France.

Founded in 1992, Paris-based SeLoger operates six property online portals including  seloger.com and immostreet.com. It has a portfolio of 1.1 million online property advertisements, a reach of 3.1 million unique users and 14.1 million visits per month.

SeLoger has an extensive network among property agents, who act as intermediaries in the French property market. About 80 per cent of the property agents in the Paris metro region and 55 per cent of the property agents in the other French regions use SeLoger's portals.

By the end of June 2010, SeLoger had increased the number of property agent customers by 7 per cent compared to the previous year and had posted revenues of €73 million last year.

Berlin-based Axel Springer, publisher of Europe's best-selling tabloid Bild said that it has already agreed to buy 12.4 per cent stake in SeLoger from a group of shareholders including the founders Amal Amar and Denys Chalumeau for €34 per share in cash or around €70 million ($90 million).

It now intends to launch a voluntary public offer for the remaining 14,584,376 outstanding shares of SeLoger at €34.00 per share in cash or €496 million ($629 million), representing a premium of 13.3 per cent of SeLoger's closing price of €30 on 9 September 2010.

The total transaction including the purchase of SeLoger's founders stock values SeLoger at €566 million ($719 million).

The acquisition of SeLoger would be the second major acquisition done in France by Axel Springer after it had acquired a controlling stake in auFeminine.com in 2007 for more than €280 million.

''Classified advertisements have been a core business of Axel Springer since the inception of the Group. We are seeing a rapid migration of classified advertising from the print to the online world, and Axel Springer has already established itself as a major online player in several European markets.

The investment in Seloger.com SA therefore fits well into our strategy and will be a significant expansion of our European footprint in the online classifieds business,'' said Dr. Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Axel Springer.

Founded in 1946, the €2.6 billion turnover Axel Springer is Europe's largest multimedia print, online, and Web-TV company.

It has more than 230 newspapers and magazines, more than 80 online offerings as well as holdings in television and radio stations. It is active in over 36 countries and publishes newspapers and magazines in Switzerland, Spain, and France, Poland, Hungary, Russia, the Czech Republic and Romania.

Axel Springer has a joint venture in India with the India Today Group, one of the biggest publishing houses on the subcontinent for marketing the Indian edition of car magazine AUTO BILD. Axel Springer founded the ITAS Media company and has its head office in New Delhi.