CoStar shakes up board of directors

Arlington County-based real estate data and analytics company CoStar Group is making major changes to its board of directors and launching a committee to scrutinize its finances as part of an agreement it entered with New York hedge funds D. E. Shaw group and Third Point.

As part of the terms of the agreement, which will be filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, CoStar says its stockholders have agreed to customary standstill, voting and other provisions.

Widely known for its Apartments.com and Homes.com brands, CoStar announced Monday that it appointed former S&P Global Ratings President John Berisford, former Etsy Chief Financial Officer Rachel Glaser and former Walt Disney Company CFO Christine McCarthy to the board. The company also revealed that “as part of its ongoing refreshment efforts,” CoStar Board Chairman Michael Klein would retire from the board, as would Hilton Worldwide CEO Christopher Nassetta and Laura Cox Kaplan, a communications executive and wife of Meta Platforms/Facebook executive Joel Kaplan.

Former Turner Broadcasting System executive Louise S. Sams succeeds Klein as board chairman, CoStar’s new board will comprise eight directors, seven of whom are independent.

“I am honored to take on this role as chair and excited for the tremendous value creation opportunity ahead,” said Sams, who was executive vice president and general counsel of Turner Broadcasting for nearly two decades, in a statement.

CoStar also announced that the board established a capital allocation committee to review the company’s capital structure, capital allocation priorities and financial targets. CoStar says the committee will review the company’s ongoing investment in Homes.com and ensure an appropriate timeline for profitability.

The committee includes Berisford, McCarthy, OptumInsight CEO Robert Musslewhite and CoStar founder and CEO Andy Florance, who will serve as the committee’s chair.

The company said board will also review the company’s executive compensation programs “to ensure management’s incentives remain aligned with stockholder value creation.”

In a statement, Florance said the changes to the board allow the company to “extend its long track record of creating stockholder value.”

CoStar plans to announces its quarter 1 earnings for 2025 on April 29.

“The changes announced today, coupled with CoStar’s leading franchises, position the company to create sustainable value for stockholders,” said Michael O’Mary, managing director at the D. E. Shaw group, in a statement.

In February, CoStar announced plans to fill more than 1,000 new positions, including hiring 500 new Homes.com sales professionals. However, the company also said it planned to eliminate roles from efficiencies gained by using AI and anticipates reducing some roles during normal annual performance management. The company did not say how many would be laid off. In March, CoStar announced that it had completed the $1.6 billion acquisition of Sunnyvale, California-based 3D digital twin technology company Matterport.

CoStar established a global operations center in Richmond in 2016 and has since grown that office to over 2,350 employees, becoming one of the Central Virginia region’s larger employers. CoStar announced it will complete a 1-million-square-foot campus development along the James River in May 2026 and that the campus will house 3,500 employees.