MAM
News Corp buys Propertyfinder.com for $25 million
MUMBAI: News International, the newspaper arm of media conglomerate News Corp, and online property group realestate.com.au have acquired the UK classified advertising web site Propertyfinder.com for $25.3 million.
The two companies have jointly purchased 95 per cent of Assert Holdings which owns propertyfinder.com from venture capital firm Arts Alliance, as well as minority shareholders including Hamptons Group Limited and management.
News International has said it would use what it called the unparalleled reach of its newspapers – the Sun, the News of the World, the Times and the Sunday Times – to promote the site and drive readers and internet users to it. Propertyfinder.com launched in 1995 and is now used by more than 2,000 estate agents offering 200,000 properties for sale and for let.
News Corp gained control of online property business realestate.com.au last week after its shareholding increased to 51.52 per cent.
News Ltd, owns a minority stake in realestate.com.au and has been trying to take control of the company.
Media reports indicate that Realestate.com.au will take over the running of propertyfinder.com and will seek to rapidly accelerate subscription and visitor growth.
Brands
Google completes $32 billion Wiz deal to boost AI and cloud security
Wiz joins Google Cloud but keeps multi-cloud support across rival platforms
NEW YORK: Google has completed its $32 billion acquisition of cloud security company Wiz, marking the biggest deal in the tech giant’s history and signalling a major push to strengthen security in the era of artificial intelligence and multi-cloud computing.
The New York-headquartered cybersecurity firm will join Google Cloud while continuing to operate under the Wiz brand. Crucially, the company will maintain support for multiple cloud platforms, including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud, reflecting the reality that most large organisations run their systems across several cloud providers.
Google said the acquisition is designed to help organisations build and scale applications more securely as businesses and governments increasingly move critical systems and data to the cloud. At the same time, the rapid adoption of generative AI has introduced new cybersecurity risks, with attackers also using AI to launch faster and more sophisticated attacks.
Wiz has built a reputation for simplifying cloud security. Its platform maps entire cloud environments, identifying vulnerabilities, potential attack paths and misconfigurations before they can be exploited. By connecting insights from code, cloud infrastructure and runtime environments, it allows security and engineering teams to detect and fix risks early in the development cycle.
Bringing Wiz into Google Cloud will create what the company describes as a unified security platform capable of detecting, preventing and responding to threats across cloud and AI environments. The combined offering will also integrate Google’s own security capabilities, including threat intelligence tools, security operations platforms and the cybersecurity expertise of Mandiant.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the move reflects the growing importance of security as more organisations rely on AI and cloud technologies. “Keeping people safe online has always been part of Google’s mission,” he said, adding that the partnership will help organisations innovate with greater confidence.
Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian, said the goal is to make security an enabler rather than a roadblock for businesses building modern applications. He noted that the combined technologies will simplify the complex task of protecting hybrid and multi-cloud environments.
For Wiz, the acquisition opens the door to global scale while keeping its core philosophy intact. Co-founder and CEO Assaf Rappaport said the company remains committed to an open, multi-cloud approach and will continue supporting customers regardless of where their workloads run.
Over the past year, Wiz has expanded its platform to address emerging risks tied to AI applications, including tools that help organisations monitor AI usage, detect AI-specific vulnerabilities and secure AI workloads during runtime.
With Google’s infrastructure, artificial intelligence capabilities and security ecosystem now behind it, Wiz plans to accelerate development of its platform while continuing to serve enterprises, governments and start-ups operating across different cloud environments.
For Google Cloud, the acquisition adds a powerful piece to its security puzzle as competition intensifies among global cloud providers. For customers, it promises a future where building fast in the cloud does not have to come at the expense of staying secure.
