Digital media companies Group Nine and Refinery29 are planning to merge, three close people aware of this news revealed. As most of the digital ad share is going to Google and Facebook, so a lot of venture-funded digital media companies are planning to merge. Such speculations are in new since the last few months. However, there is no clear message from the heads of both the companies namely, Group Nine and Refinery. Even the heads of both the companies said earlier this year that they only believe in the acquisition.

Although a lot of companies are planning to merge, which is not an easy task. Any type of merger involves a lot of challenges which both the merger companies need to tackle. Similar to this, the merger between Group Nine and Refinery doesn’t seem to come in the near future. Both companies need to understand the values of each other before coming together to make their merger successful. However, in the case of these two companies, investors namely, Discovery and Turner have to agree on terms as both of these backed Group Nine and Refinery.

As the two companies belong to different cultures so it is hard to combine and if it happens, then it would be a challenging task. One of the possibilities that experienced media mergers and acquisitions suggests is that both the companies could combine in a stock deal without changing money from one hand to another. However, if this merger happens, the chances for the growth of both companies would increase manifold. There is a huge demand for digital media and hence the  responsibility for digital footprint also resides on the shoulders of both the companies. Reacting to this merger news, both Group Nine and Refinery representative said they have not decided anything about the merger. They said they are discussing the opportunities to merge with their peers.

The nature of the two companies, Group Nine and Refinery29 are the same, as the two make videos for the audience. Out of the two, Group Nine makes more profit, although the industry watchers don’t consider this fact. The relation between the two companies is on the grounds of links between investors. Group Nine CEO Ben Lerer joins the team of Lerer Hippaeu, which has made an investment in Refinery.

Group Nine, which is a product of Nowthis, The Dodo, Thrillist, and Seeker. It got started due to the $100 mn investment of Discovery Communications and post this, discovery continued to invest more money into it. In order to diversify, it is planning to sell its video studio output and branching out to e-commerce. On the other hand, 2005 founded company, Refinery is a women’s lifestyle publisher. Refinery gets its revenue from advertising and organizing other events. The company is planning to increase its profitability by expanding its live events and selling high-quality video for streaming services globally.

The companies are talking about a merger because these venture-backed digital media are not getting enough money out of their business and hence their profitability is not very high. One way to get profit is to get cheap distribution on Facebook. But Facebook has refused to allow free distribution and the major part of advertising is going into the hands of Facebook and Google. Hence, companies are only left with the option of mergers so that they could remove redundant staff to increase their profitability.

WASHINGTON – The average mortgage rates on a 30-year fixed mortgage have fallen again due to the rushing of investors into the bond market. This is expected to continue for a period of 3 months. Mortgages rates approximately follow the yield on the 10-year treasury. The average lenders offer an interest rate between 4.125 and 4.25 percent. However, the more aggressive lender charge a lower interest rate of 3.875% for some borrowers with pristine applications.

Before the announcement of Federal Reserve to not to raise the interest rates this year, the average rate stood at 4.40 percent. Federal Reserve also revealed in an announcement that it would jump into buying bonds again which is why interest rates would not rise. Mortgage rates underwent fluctuations in the last few months. In the month of November, there was an increase of over 5% in the mortgage rates which fell in December. Post this fall, there was a monthly spike of 12% in the sale of existing homes in the months of December and January. Not only in the US, but Toronto second mortgages rates were also showed a similar trend.

Due to decent economic growth in the US and the shrinking economic growth all over the world, the mortgage rates were kept at as low as 3.5 % and this trend is expected to continue in the future as well. Also, in the year 2016 and 2017, mortgage rates were lower and there was an increase in the sale of homes during this period of time.

Mike Fratantoni, Chief Economist for the Mortgage Bankers Association said their forecast hints that mortgage rates are expected to get higher later in the year to an average value of 4.6 percent. But during this period of time, the drop in mortgage rates has given an opportunity to the prospective buyers to go for their home. Due to low mortgage rates and moderating home-price growth, the purchasing power of people has improved. It is expected that this would result in an increase in the sale of homes than the previous time.

PUNE – Asia’s largest network of Angel investors has decided to invest Rs. 3.5 crores in Pune-based Automobile start-up, SparesHub. The members of IAN namely, Neeraj Garg, Harsh Gandhi, Ankur Aggarwal will lead the funding for the automobile startup, SpareHub. This funding of Rs. 3.5 crores will be utilised by SpareHub for its geographical expansion and to strengthen its technology capabilities. SparesHub, with the help of its 27 employees makes available the auto parts to various car-owners.

Since the time it came into action, SpareHub has been working to disintermediate and digitise the automobile part industry in India. Before the start of SpareHub, the car owner companies used to get all the auto parts at a high price and also they used to face a lot of difficulty in getting access to automobile parts. This unit deals with B2B customers and works with India’s leading car companies. The motive of SpareHub is to make available OEM and OES parts available to its customers.

The President and Co-founder of Indian Angel Network has said that the firm has decided to invest in the auto startup after taking into consideration various factors into account. It is the team’s unique business model, vision, strategy, a strong technological framework which has appealed to us to invest in this startup. This company has the capability to emerge as the leading player in its domain and it would enhance its product at a constant rate. You can even review the products of ShareHub at autonerdreview.

The CEO of SparesHub, Tapas Gupta expressed his gratitude to IAN for showing trust in their company’s business model. He said that the main motive of their firm is to constantly challenge the traditional methodologies and ensure complete customer satisfaction. Also, he showed hopes for working in collaboration with IAN in the future.