Rupert Murdoch's News Corp is spending more than $1 billion acquiring Move Inc, signalling its plans to be the US's biggest online real estate player.
Move is currently the number three player in the growing $US30 billion American online real estate market.
However it was in a unique position to become number one, "turbo-charged" by News Corp's existing expertise in print and online real estate, said chief executive Robert Thomson.
As well as diversifying away from Mr Murdoch's declining but dominant legacy print earnings, the friendly takeover will mean News Corp is directly buying a digital business that had stolen a large slice of revenue from its newspaper classifieds.
It is News Corp's biggest deal since Mr Murdoch's empire was split in two in mid 2013.
News Corp controls REA group, operator of Australia's leading property website realestate.com.au, and is the nation's biggest newspaper publisher.
Under the deal with Move, REA will take a 20 per cent stake in the US business.
The acquisition will pit the Murdoch family against Australian billionaire James Packer, who is the second-largest shareholder in the US's online real estate market leader Zillow.
News Corp will have to beat the relatively short history of the internet, where it has been difficult for number three or even two players to compete as proven by the dominance of seek and carsales as well as realestate.com.au businesses in Australia.
However Mr Thomson said he was bullish about Move's prospects, partly because the US online real estate market was still raw with huge growth potential as property buyers and sellers moved online.
News Corp could leverage its huge New York Post and Wall Street Journal online audiences - more than half a billion views a month, says Mr Thomson - to market Move's websites, including realtor.com.
"These are are two markets (Australia and the US) at very different stages of evolution," he said.
"The amount that these (US online) companies have as a total of marketing spend is minuscule compared to a market like Australia.
"The potential growth and prize associated with that remains to be contested and we will certainly use all of our marketing muscle and use those platforms to project Move in a way that has hitherto not been the case."
Analysts are questioning the cost of the $US950 million ($A1.03 billion), $US21-a-share deal, given Move's earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of only $US29 million last year.
Morningstar analyst Brian Han said that with more than $3 billion in excess cash News Corp could afford the deal.
He said his main concern was its ability to take business away from its larger rival.
"This is positive and it is critical that they have a presence in the online space not just in property but automotive and jobs," he told AAP.
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