Rich Barton will return as chief executive officer to Zillow, the company he co-founded in 2005 and served as CEO until 2010. He replaces Spencer Rascoff, a co-founder who will remain on the board.
Barton had been executive chairman but will give up that post to assume his new role. Lloyd Frink, co-founder of Zillow, now becomes executive chairman.
Rascoff has led Zillow Group as CEO from 2010 through its initial public offering, overseeing 15 acquisitions and increasing the staff to more than 4,000 from 200. While those might be significant accomplishments, the leadership changes coincide with the release of the company’s fourth quarter and full year 2018 earnings report.
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While Zillow reported annual revenue of $1.3 billion in 2018, an exponential jump from the $30 million of revenue the company earned at the time Rascoff became CEO. Fourth quarter revenue of $365.3 million, up 29 percent year-over-year, driven by growth in Premier Agent revenue and the addition of Homes revenue.
Zillow’s fourth quarter performance wasn’t totally pristine.
The homes segment revenue was $41.3 million for the fourth quarter of 2018. Homes segment GAAP loss, before income taxes, was approximately $27.2 million, or 66 percent of segment revenue for the fourth quarter of 2018, and the homes segment Adjusted EBITDA was a loss of $20 million, or 48 percent of segment revenue. Mortgage revenue dropped 10 percent to $23.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2018 compared with the same time period in 2017.
Barton, who also founded Expedia in 1994 and co-founded Glassdoor in 2007, and Frink have remained active executives of Zillow Group since the company was founded.
“We created Zillow Group in 2005 to make the real estate shopping and purchase process easier,” said Barton. “Much of our original dream is just now becoming possible. We are at an inflection point in this quest, and the time is right to shuffle leadership seats.”
“Leading Zillow Group through its tremendous growth has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life,” Rascoff said. “The company is well-positioned for Rich to now take the wheel as CEO through its next phase of growth.”
