Byline: Ken MacFadyen
While IAC/InterActive downplayed potential M&A activity in its April earnings call, the company is showing signs in May of developing a renewed appetite for deals. On Monday, the company's Match.com affiliate launched a voluntary public tender offer for all of the outstanding shares of Meetic SA, valuing the company's stock at a[logical not]15 a share. The deal comes as IAC bolstered its in-house M&A team with the addition of Microsoft Corp. and Glam Media veteran Adam Roston, who just joined the company as a vice president of Mergers & Acquisitions.
The deal for Meetic represents a closer alignment between the target and IAC, which already holds a 27% stake in the company, the result of its sale of Match.com's European business to Meetic in 2009.
IAC, since its restructuring in 2008, has been opportunistic as it relates to M&A. The company had built up a huge internet conglomerate, but broke up the company with concurrent spinouts of Ticketmaster, Home Shopping Network, Lending Tree and Interval. Expedia, another former IAC asset, was also spun out in 2005, and last year, Evite and Gifts.com were sold to Liberty Media as part of an equity exchange
Today, IAC operates more than 50 brands, operating largely through its four primary segments, consisting of Match.com, search (through Ask.com), ServiceMagic and media, which includes assets such as The Daily Beast, Dictionar.com and others.
IAC CEO Greg Blatt and Tom McInerney, IAC's executive vice president and CFO, discussed the company's deal palate in the April conference call covering the company's first-quarter earnings. Blatt noted that while IAC had yet to complete a deal, the pursuit has been focused on "businesses [with] real growth potential," as opposed to "going after costs or synergies."
IAC, which as of March 31 had roughly $1.3 billion of cash and marketable securities on its balance sheet, has been fairly active so far this year. Its CityGrid Media business, earlier in May, acquired BuzzLabs, while other deals from the previous six months include Match.com's purchase of OkCupid, the Daily Beast merger with Newsweek, and the Electus-led acquisition of Engine Entertainment.
Roston, meanwhile, arrives from Glam Media, where he spent less than a year after arriving from Microsoft Corp.
An inquiry into IAC was not immediately returned by press time.
No comments:
Post a Comment