PlentyOfFish failed to be acquired by IAC

A 2 years long negotiations reached an end.

The main obstacle was the price. With USD 10 Million anyone can develop a new compatibility matching site, even to replace Chemistry, a 8 years old obsolete site.

If the owners of PlentyOfFish can not innovate in the Online Dating Industry, the best strategy for them was to try to sell PlentyOfFish.

The best timing to sell your online dating company is when you do not need to, when it is a healthy ship and not when the owner/CEO is simply jumping from a sinking ship. New legislation can kill free/freemium sites. A variety of new laws, or new interpretations of existing laws, could subject dating sites to claims or otherwise harm their business.

The IAC (InterActiveCorporation, nasdaq: IACI) previously tried to acquire eHarmony for USD 500 Million during November 2011, but failed.


Free/freemium online dating sites like PlentyOfFish and OKCupid are only marketing tools useful to send prospective customers to paid online dating sites like Chemistry and eHarmony.
When free users got tired of free sites, they migrate to a paid one.
Revenue of IAC Personals (Match, Chemistry, OKCupid, Meetic, ParPerfeito, MeeticAffinity, SinglesNet, People's Media Communities, DateHookUp and others) is in the range of USD 750 Million.
Revenue of eHarmony' sites (USA, Canada, Australia, UK and Brazil) is in the range of USD 180 Million.
Revenue of IAC Personals + Revenue of eHarmony' sites == USD 930 Million, nearly USD 1 B.
Revenue of PlentyOfFish Media's sites (PlentyOfFish, eVow and several dating sites powered by a white label dating company) is in the range of USD 40 Million.
USD 40 Million / USD 1,000 Million == 4% of market (in revenue).
PlentyOfFish has the traffic but others receive the money.

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The Simpsons, Apple, Facebook, LinkedIn, WordPress, Google, Hotmail, Yahoo, YouTube, Blogger, Wikipedia, Bing, Twitter, Skype are BIG successes in Argentina!!!
I have the theory that if something is successful in Argentina, it could be a success in the World.
If it can NOT be a success here in Argentina, it will definitely NOT be a success in the World.
NO online dating company (for serious daters) has success here in Argentina nor Brazil or other Latin American country.