Portal to riches?

Last year brought the financial portal Money.pl zł.11 million in revenue, which gave the company zł.1.7 million in EBITDA and zł.1.3 million in net profit. Over the last four years, the company's revenues and profits have grown more than 10-fold and in 2006 Money.pl took seventh place in the Technology Fast 50, an index of the most dynamic CEE companies by Deloitte. Data from Megapanel PBI/Gemius shows that the portal has 1.6 million users every month.

The portal's two sources of revenue were online advertising and e-commerce services,  which amounted to zł.6 million and zł.5 million in 2006, respectively.

"We owe our success not only to rapid growth in the number of internet users but innovation of our internet projects," opines Tomasz Bonek, chief editor of the portal. Bonek says that it is the profile of the users - young and affluent - that makes the portal eye-catching for advertisers. As for e-commerce services, the boom on the real-estate market attracts clients and encourages the company to develop these services.

In mid-2006, the German Handelsblatt publishing group took 70 percent of Money.pl's shares. This was the publisher's first purchase in Poland but not its last, since the company is actively searching for another investment opportunity. "Money.pl was a success, [so] we are now watching the Polish media market," Joachim Weidemann, Handelsblatt's CEE-region head, told WBJ.