Real-estate data firm CoStar Group Inc. received court approval yesterday for its $588 million acquisition of bankrupt apartment-search site operator RentPath Inc., WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Judge Brendan Shannon of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del. signed off on the acquisition and RentPath’s related chapter 11 plan, clearing CoStar of a major hurdle in closing the transaction. The proposed merger must now be approved by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission which is reviewing the deal over potential antitrust concerns. Andriana Georgallas, a bankruptcy lawyer representing RentPath, said that the company anticipates receiving a decision from the FTC in August. If the FTC doesn’t approve the deal, RentPath has a backup offer from lenders that would instead take over the business in exchange for forgiving company debt. Atlanta-based RentPath advertises about 28,000 properties on its network of sites, ApartmentGuide.com, Rentals.com, Lovely.com and Rent.com. Its family of websites gets an average of 14 million unique visitors a month, according to the company’s website.
