I'm also a $REA shareholder in RL, and happy they walked away. That was an acquisition that, IMO, couldn't have been done at an acceptable-to-REA-shareholders price. My understanding is that there is a critical difference between REA and RMV, namely that while REA can and do (as in this last week or so) increase their listing prices and that cost gets passed directly through to the agent's customer (not borne by the agent) in the UK, that passing on of fees in such a free-and-easy way is restricted (? possibly not allowed). So while REA can easily raise their prices and make more money, RMV can't do that in the same unrestricted way.

Think you’ll find most acquires drop once announcing an acquisition. As most know most acquisitions destroy value for the acquirer so the share price reaction was typical.

I owned rightmove and sold into the offer. Same dominant position as REA in australia. I also own auto trader which is the carsales of the Uk. Much better value in UK than in aus where anything of quality trades at a large premium to intl. values.

I think REA walking away shows discipline and using their expensive share price as a currency made sense (also what would have turned off right move management). Tick for management both for REA and RMV. That said I didn’t see any synergies there so a tie up makes little strategic sense other than valuation differential - both dominant portals and both are fully leveraging their market position on pricing.

Scout24 and and Hemnet are more interesting for future runway being the leaders in Germany and Sweden respectively and early in their pricing journey, albeit hemnet not cheap either now.

REA is sitting on too much cash generation and management are getting itchy fingers which is a bit scary. I understand they have a lot in franking credits so really should use increase the dividend substantially in my view. Stop messing around overseas.