LatAm Autos launches regional content platform

AUTOMOTIVE classifieds business LatAm Autos will today launch its first regional automotive content platform.

LatAm has a portfolio of websites in Argentina, Mexico, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru and Panama

THE South America-focused ­automotive classifieds business backed by AFL chairman ­Michael Fitzpatrick, Freelancer.com investor Simon Clausen and former CBA chairman Colin Galbraith will today launch its first regional automotive content platform.

LatAm Autos, a roll-up of online advertisers operating in Latin America that listed on the Australian Securities Exchange in December, is also rolling out its proprietary technology known as PTX that will provide the company with a unified, cloud-based platform for the first time.

LatAm has a portfolio of automotive websites in Argentina, Mexico, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru and Panama and an automotive magazine in Argentina. Mr Fitzpatrick owns more than 14 per cent of the company.

Its shares are now trading above their 30c issue price after falling as low as 21c in late January. On Friday, shares in the company closed at 31c.

Its new automotive content platform, motorbit.com, is based on the success of the company’s Peruvian site todoautos.pe and will contain content on new cars and automotive technologies.

“(This) will reduce our reliance on google marketing in the future ... It is really an additional spoke in our traffic internet strategy,’’ LatAm Autos executive chairman Timothy Handley said.

Morbit.com will reduce LA’s cost of acquisition over a customers’ lifetime because it will only need to acquire them once, while it will also offer an additional revenue channel from advertising.

The new site will also use a network of journalists in Panama, Ecuador and Argentina as well as journalists and video production and post-production experts in Peru. LA is also recruiting in Mexico. The journalists will provide content to support the platform.

Both Seek and Carsales have targeted Latin America as a key driver for future growth and LA is looking to capitalise on that opportunity. By 2017, internet penetration in Latin America is expected to be at 63 per cent.

The company has been speculated as a potential takeover target for Carsales, which owns the leading Brazilian auto marketing group WebMotors.

Mr Handley dismissed concerns that the business was being valued as another roll-up play, some of which have been shunned by the sharemarket in recent times, especially in the education sector.

“We don’t see our company as a roll-up,’’ he said.

“Some of the risks that you have in integrating more bricks and mortar businesses don’t exist in this type of business. It is very much a people, marketing business. Seek and carsales have shown this can be done.’’

LA’s proprietary technology PTX will be rolled out across all its sites by the end of May.

It will allow for faster navigation, increased functionality and user-friendly search functions within the platform, across multiple devices. It will also include a free car valuation tool for users based on current and previous listings of same model cars.

“This will give us a very significant advantage over any of our competitors,’’ Mr Handley said. “This will be the backbone of the whole business. This has been a work in progress for quite a while.

“It is mobile-friendly. The smartphone in Latin America is going to accelerate the internet penetration, even faster than we have seen in Australia. It is fundamental to have that strategy in place. From a general user point of view, when you look at the competing websites, the quality is pretty low.’’

The company has now completed two acquisitions it had planned before the IPO: Demotores in Mexico and Peru and Avisoriaweb in Ecuador, Panama and Bolivia.

Mr Handley said LA remained on the lookout for other deals, but would be constrained by its current balance sheet.

“There are some opportunities out there that we are always looking at. If we were to do an acquisition it would be funded via a capital raising,’’ he said.