Classified Ventures’ Value Down 13% to $338 Million

Classified Ventures, the holding company for Cars.com, Homescape, Apartments.com, RentalHomesPlus and HomeGain that is jointly owned by McClatchy, A.H. Belo Corp., Gannett Co., Tribune Co. and The Washington Post Co. is now valued at $338 million. The valuation, contained in a 10-K filed by McClatchy, is 13 percent below the $382 million at which the company was valued in December 2007. The valuation was apparently affected by the slow ad environment and “impairments” at its HomeGain real estate leads unit, which had been sued by former employees for forced overtime and other issues.

The McClatchy 10-K also contained declining valuation information for CareerBuilder, which is the newspapers’ biggest vertical success story. CareerBuilder’s value has been marked slightly down from $1.56 billion in December to $1.52 billion in June.