Contributed by: Editor on Thursday, May 07 2009 @ 10:49 am
Last modified on
We wrote recently about Match.com selling their European operations to Meetic (see Story). For the sale we knew that Match.com will receive 27 percent share of Meetic plus a 5 million euro note. What we didn't know is, according to Ross Williams, CEO of WhiteLabelDating:
There was a clause in the announcement that didn't make many of the headlines, but I think will tell you the direction IAC is going in: Match has the option to buy Meetic in its entirety in about three years.
This makes things interesting. Before I knew about this piece of information, I had thought Match.com had decided to maybe concentrate on the North American market like everyone else. If Match.com has the option to buy Meetic then this makes more sense in the long run for the two companies. I could never see why Match had decided to get out of Europe since revenue wise they were doing well and, they have numerous other partnerships in places like South America and Asia (therefore they are not just concentrating on North America). If the sale does go through then, Meetic's CEO and founder, Marc Simoncini, will still be the main shareholder with over 20% and 36% of the voting rights.
Visit Mad.co.uk[*1] for the full article called Love is in the air.