Techcrunch: Adultfriendfinder sold for almost 1 billion dollars

[gonzo]

Originally Posted by Forest

before gonzo gets in and says it

FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEE LARSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Kind of makes sense now doesnt it?

[Hell Puppy]

I dont question that they were sold, or even who they were perhaps sold to. That all makes sense if you look at the pieces.

Now if the deal was for a billion, I cant see that being a cash deal. That type of cash requires public funds, usually stock, and you cant keep that on the down low for long.

Then again, there's a Hoffa in charge of the Teamsters again, wonder what the pension fund is investing in these days?

[Toby]

The latest rumor is that the buyer is Penthouse and the sale figure is closer to $500 milllion.

[Hell Puppy]

Originally Posted by Toby

The latest rumor is that the buyer is Penthouse and the sale figure is closer to $500 milllion.

More believable...

I do hear that the new ownership behind Penthouse has access to some creative financing options....

[RawAlex]

While I wouldn't want to claim anyone would have worked to artificially inflate the value of property, this all would make the Zango and torrent marketing campaigns make much more sense. Keeping the main properties in the alexa top 100 and top 1000 respectively is certainly a way to add or retain value.

The bigger question in the end would be what this means for their affiliate program. I cannot picture a new player coming in and wanting to keep paying very high payouts per signup, as it is no longer justified to just keep the traffic flowing. They need to extract all the net income they can from the properties, which is likely best achieved by collected the monthly fees from the existing users and attempting to internally upsell them, rather than paying outsiders for traffic. Certainly cutting the costs of traffic in half (going, say, to a $50 payout instead of a $100 or higher) would have a beneficial effect on the bottom line, at least in the short run.

It all depends who took it. It also depends if they decide to seperate out or split off the "sex" parts of the business (such as live chat cams) and run that independantly or sell it to a third party.

Lars may finally be allowed to come out of his hideout and explain himself!

[gonzo]

Originally Posted by RawAlex

Lars may finally be allowed to come out of his hideout and explain himself!

A Rogue Affiliate tells me that there was a memo circulated giving an effective gag order from the top down. Im certain that the staff was told not to be discussion the dirty Zango dealings.

Im pretty sure before this rumor was being circulated that no one there for the most part had even known they had been sold.

Business as usual - is my speculation.

One thing is for sure. If the rumor is true...and I believe it is more than a rumor ... then Penthouse cashed out every asset and angle they had availible to seal the deal. Only a publically traded company could have scored a deal this size. The economics of it do not make sense otherwise.

Ponder this... all of these "small" buys of companies consolidating... Im certain they put in play deals of this size that you dont hear about.

Of course you wont read about this elsewhere until later.

[Rcourt64]

They dropped the necro program, So it ain't worth shit anymore