Experian makes a loss in offloading PriceGrabber to Indians

Credit-checking group Experian yesterday finally unloaded its price-comparison website PriceGrabber and two related businesses for considerably less than it paid in 2005.

Experian is selling the businesses to India's Ybrant Digital for $175m (£108m), $310m less than it paid for PriceGrabber seven years ago.

Chief executive Don Robert said that in total the group had invested $900m on the businesses it was selling, but after taking into account profits taken out of them as well as other factors, the overall loss was around $300m.

Experian originally tried to sell PriceGrabber for more than it paid for it, but any deal was scuppered by the financial crisis. Headline earnings for the year to March rose by 19 per cent to $1.18bn. The dividend for the year is up 14 per cent to 32 cents.

Mr Robert said revenues in the UK, which rose by 8 per cent, had been robust given the challenging underlying economic background. He said much of the growth came from consumers using Experian's online services to check their credit ratings.