Charities to be given £10m from Martin Lewis’s windfall however some users are miserable with sale to Moneysupermarket.comIt cost only £80 to locate up, however after nine years of helping human beings reclaim bank charges, find the best bank account and get the best imaginable deal on fish fingers, the website MoneySavingExpert.com has netted its founder Martin Lewis an £87m payday.Lewis, who has found fame through nearly daily appearances on TV and radio in which he urges consumers to grab bargains and capture on the banks, is selling to Moneysupermarket.com.The 40-year-ancient will receive £60m in cash and shares upfront and a further £27m if he meets targets for the following three years. He is handing £10m of his windfall to charity, including £1m to Citizens Advice. About 40 members of staff will share a pot worth “in the single digit millions”.Lewis, who started his career in financial PR before retraining as a journalist and working for the BBC, said he was selling the website he locate up in 2003 since he wanted to ensure that “with or without me, the site will be encircling for many years to come”. He said he was working 70 to 80 hours a week and struggling to find age to do other things. “This will autonomous of charge me up to do more campaigning employment,” he said. “Human beings shouldn’t be worried that I will go silent. If anything, they should be worried that this is going to enable me to have an much louder voice.”One of Lewis’s projects is to get financial education on the college curriculum.The secret to MSE’s success has been in attracting human beings who would not normally visit a personal finance website, however cannot resist a bargain or distrust huge organisations. The site attracted 39 million visitors in the year to October 2011 and five million have signed up to receive Lewis’s weekly email of cash-saving tips.Much of the site’s pulling ability has been its independence. It makes money when users click on links and acquire products that have been recommended, however Lewis has always insisted that best buys are not chosen on the basis of commercial gain and products would be included much if it did not pay.The website made a profit of about £13m in the year to 31 October 2011, from revenues of £15m – with 59% of that income coming from an existing deal between MSE and its fresh owner.Some readers questioned whether Lewis’s independence would continue under the fresh owners. One wrote on MoneySavingExpert’s own forum: “To commence with we will see no difference however drip by drip moneysupermarket will suffocate this site and strip it of all its ways to turn the public’s autonomous of charge advice into pure profit.”Lewis said he was unaware of users’ discontent and had “spent the morning receiving messages of congratulations and well wishes”.He insisted his readers had nothing to worry about since the sale terms included a legally binding commitment to keep the site independent and that he was contracted to remain as editor-in-chief for the following three years.”I have sold however I have not sold outside,” he said. “There are some human beings who will remain sceptical however what I’d affirm to them is employ the site and tell me if you reckon anything has changed.”While MSE staff produce many guides to saving and reclaiming money, many believe it is the reader forums which constitute it distinctive.Some of those readers feel that it is their efforts – contributing tips about bargains and deals – which have enabled Lewis to get rich. One questioned: “Are the regular and extremely helpful forum users getting a dividend then? That’s where most of the value lies in this site. You’re all being sold to border Martin’s pockets.”Although Lewis once told the Twitter “I’m more motivated by ego than money”, he immediately claims that the site “is far larger than the male who founded it”, and that “MoneySavingExpert” had replaced “Martin Lewis” as the more well loved internet search term.However, his importance to the brand is highlighted by statistics showing he has more than 125,000 Twitter followers.There have been brushes with controversy: after the collapse of the Icelandic bank Icesave in 2008, Lewis was widely criticised for having directed his readers to the accounts.Brought up in Cheshire, Lewis attended the private King’s College in Cheshire and went on to the London College of Economics. While there, he stood for president of the Student Union and won, much though the other six candidates were running a “Stop Martin Lewis” campaign.Peter Plumb, the chief executive officer of MoneySupermarket, said the two websites shared a common goal of helping customers save money.”We’ll aid MoneySavingExpert.com reach a wider audience and MoneySavingExpert.com will broaden the range of advice and tools we offer, encouraging much more human beings to capture action, tap into the benefits of the internet to find a bigger deal and constitute the most of their money,” he said.Moneysupermarket.comHilary Osborneguardian.co.uk © 2012 Twitter News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Employ of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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