New York, A Little After Lunch On Tuesday, February 3: Real Estate News reported today that another major investor of CoStar isn’t super-psyched on CEO Andy Florance’s take that he can win the portal war. Hedge Fund D.E. Shaw said that Florance’s chosen strategy is, “value destructive.” Apparently that’s hedge fund-speak for “Stop cleaning public park restrooms with our money.”
If you can remember all the way back to a week ago, the first primary funder spoke out against the home search website in a letter that would be hard to describe as “subtle.”
Florance may be secretly loving this, as the guy has never met a microphone he didn’t like, and opportunities to defend his after-birth is like his personal American Idol.
I thought a few of the folks at the Homes.com booth here at Inman Connect would be open to chatting about today’s news. I’m kidding of course, they had zero interest.
I commend the two nice women at the booth for their press-ready reticence, which bordered between, “We know exactly what you’re talking about.” and “We need to pay our mortgage this month.” It was very clear they were briefed on what’s happening.
I watched a couple sets of eye-balls dart suddenly from their phone screens at my appeal that “marketing and sales staff” are the perfect people to speak on such an issue. After all, in the end, they are exactly the people who will be burned first by the cash inferno Florance has set alight.
Anyway, I picked up some promotional lip balm. I hope they keep some of it to hand out at the next meeting of CoStar investors. They sure are chapped about something.