Marc Simoncini’s Eurpean online dating powerhouse, Meetic, next week will offer 570,387 existing shares and and issue up to 3.93 million new shares at between 19.20-22.30 euros. Meetic made a net profit of 2.7 million euros on sales of 21.3 million euros in 2004. The shares will be priced on Oct. 12, with first dealings on Oct. 13. Regardless of a somewhat-high 7x valuation of 2005 sales and 35 times 2005 earnings, fund managers are predicting the success of the deal.
Press release.
Update: Marc emailed to let me know that the funds raised (70-80 Million Euros) will be used “essentially to buy competitors” but would not comment on any sites specifically. You can be assured there are a lot of EU dating sites that are gearing up for acquisition mode right now. I’ll have more on potential targets shortly.
[tags: meetic]
