Bien'Ici Boss Lays Out 2025 Ambitions in Intriguing Interview

Bien'Ici boss Cyril Janin has come out swinging in an interview with the French media, saying the portal's ambition is to become the leading player in its domestic market within the next year.

Janin spoke to the real estate publication l'Agence on topics including the portal's 3D map, future goals, and shareholders.

Interestingly, Janin also implied a rival portal—possibly SeLoger—offered to buy out the shareholding of the French real estate development services company Nexity, which recently partially divested its stake in Bien'Ici to focus on internal financial difficulties.

A proportion of Nexity's shares in Bien'Ici were eventually sold to an existing shareholder, the Arche Group, with Janin relieved that Bien'Ici did not "fall into the clutches of our main competitor".

Janin told l'Agence:

"Despite a difficult market context, Bien'ici is showing good growth in terms of audience and turnover. In September, we broke a record with more than 17 million visits . These very good results are also a sign that the French are once again keen to see their real estate project come to fruition.

"Our ambition is to become the leading player in the real estate portal market within 12 months . Let's not forget that we are currently the only portal to reserve its ads exclusively for real estate professionals.

"For my part, I am delighted with this decision by the Arche Group , which allows the majority of Bien'ici's capital to be kept in the hands of real estate professionals. This has allowed us not to fall into the clutches of our main competitor, who had offered to buy Nexity's shares." [translated from French]

No competitor was mentioned by name by Janin. However, SeLoger is the most likely candidate given that the next most likely competitor, Leboncoin, is owned by Adevinta—the multinational conglomerate that is selling, not buying. Online Marketplaces has contacted Bien'Ici for comment and will update this story with any information forthcoming.

"We are currently redesigning our famous 3D map, which is one of the keys to our success and which allows our portal to display the best conversion rate on the market," added Janin.

Today, Bien'ici ranks ahead of SeLoger, by number of real estate agency clients, in no fewer than 56 French territories.