Facile

Fast-growing online price comparison market

Facile has built a strong position in Italy’s fast-growing online price comparison market, and helps over 1.5 million Italians to save money on their household bills every month. 

Since 2017, Facile has developed a network of stores across Italy to build its omnichannel distribution capabilities and expand its addressable market.

After broadening its offer, it now offers price comparisons on gas and electricity, broadband, bank accounts, loans and mortgages as well as its core car insurance service.

Our investment 

We originally acquired a majority stake in Facile in September 2014, using our existing knowledge of the sector to move quickly and secure the management’s backing early in the process, and seeing the opportunity to diversify the business into new verticals beyond car insurance.

After four years of strong growth we sold a majority stake to EQT in June 2018, but remain investors through Fund III to take advantage of the further growth potential.

Market dynamics

The Italian price comparison market is relatively undeveloped versus other markets such as the UK and Germany.

At the time of Oakley’s original investment in 2014, online penetration of the car insurance market was at only 10%, versus 80% in the UK, providing substantial growth potential, and Facile’s position as the market leader means it is well-placed to take advantage of future market growth.

In periods of economic uncertainty and higher inflation, consumers look to switching to reduce household bills, providing further growth opportunities for price comparison websites.