Money Making Expert! Website Sold For £87m

Personal finance pundit Martin Lewis will no longer need to take his own advice on pinching pennies, after selling his website for £87m.

MoneySavingExpert.com, which gives tips on securing the best deal at restaurants, shops, household bills and insurance, has been sold to the price comparison site MoneySupermarket (Xetra: A0MW73 - news) .

The savings website was started in 2003 and has become increasingly popular as consumers faced tighter budgets with five million subscribers to its weekly emails.

It received 39 million unique visitors and 277 million page impressions in the year to October 31, according to Google Analytics, generating £15.8m over the period.

Mr Lewis, who owns 100% of the business, will receive £35m in cash and £25m in shares upfront, with the remaining £27m conditional on meeting certain targets over the next three years, during which he will stay on as editor-in-chief of the site.

"After that, the door is open for me to carry on, and I hope to do so, though perhaps with fewer hours than now, so I can spend more time on my media work and other projects I'm passionate about," Mr Lewis said.

"These include getting financial education on the curriculum."

Despite the large windfall, he plans to donate £10m to charity from the deal, including £1m to Citizens Advice.

Mr Lewis added that the deal, which needs the approval of MoneySupermarket shareholders, would ensure the website would be around for many years to come.

He added that he chose MoneySupermarket because it was independent of specific product providers and had signed up to an editorial code which will keep the website's content free from commercial pressures.

"MoneySavingExpert.com has become part of people's daily lives, far bigger than the man who founded it, and now is the right time for it to stand on its own two feet," he said.