Preparations for the IPO for Parship are in progress.
(Photo: dpa)
Frankfurt The online dating platform Parship-Meet is pushing ahead with preparations for an IPO next year. The company has selected Morgan Stanley and BNP Paribas as lead advisory banks for the planned spring listing in Frankfurt, as several people familiar with the matter told the Handelsblatt. Evercore acts as a so-called IPO advisor. In the course of the deal, the subsidiary of the German television group Pro Sieben Sat 1 Media could be valued at four to five billion euros.
Pro Sieben Sat 1 Media holds 53 percent of Parship-Meet and wants to stay invested. On the other hand, the investment company General Atlantic, which entered the e-commerce division of the Munich media company in 2018, today holds a 43 percent stake in Parship-Meet and wants to get out. The size of the IPO, the final rating and the exact timing would be made dependent on the market conditions in spring, the insiders said.
Pro Sieben declined to comment. Investor General Atlantic, like the banks, also declined to comment.
Pro-Sieben boss Rainer Beaujean has already spoken publicly about Parship-Meet’s stock exchange plans for next year, with the bank mandate the project is entering the next phase. The banks help to formulate the equity story and organize the dialogue with investors, including with potential anchor investors who could be taken on board in the run-up to an IPO.
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Last year, Pro Sieben Sat 1 bought the American competitor The Meet Group for $ 467 million and renamed the merged company the Parship-Meet Group. Parship-Meet expects an operating profit (Ebitda) of 120 million euros next year.
Valuation moves in line with key competitors
US competitors like Tinder owner Match Group and Bumble are trading at 57 and 46 times their expected operating profit, respectively, with investors heavily depending on expected growth. A valuation of four to five billion euros for Parship-Meet would be roughly in line with that of its most important competitors.
Pro Sieben Sat 1 hopes that the dating subsidiary will also boost its own stock market price. The IPO would give Parship-Meet a market value, and the value share of Parship-Meet in the Pro-Sieben-Sat-1 share price would be clearly evident. The market capitalization of Pro Sieben Sat 1 is currently 3.4 billion euros.
By pinpointing the value of its stake in Parship-Meet, Pro Sieben Sat 1 could show investors that its core entertainment business is undervalued, Beaujean had said in the past.
Parship-Meet reported sales of 280 million euros for the first half of the year, an increase of 19 percent on a pro forma basis, while adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (Ebitda) climbed to 61 million euros.
While the dating industry suffered from the corona pandemic that had made face-to-face meetings difficult, the company’s live video platform was able to grow its business with brands like Parship, Meetme, and Eharmony.
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