Skip to footer

Ancestry.com sold for $1.6 billion. Shares soar.

Ancestry.com sold to a European private equity firm for a cash deal valued at approximately $1.6 billion. As a result of the deal, Ancestry.com shares jumped nearly 10 percent Monday. 

|
Ancestry.com/AP/File
This undated image provided by Ancestry.com shows a family tree made on the genealogy website, which agreed to be acquired by a group led by European private equity firm Permira Funds in a cash deal valued at about $1.6 billion on Monday, Oct . 22, 2012.
  • By Tom Murphy AP Business writer

Genealogy website Ancestry.com has agreed to be acquired by a group led by European private equity firm Permira Funds in a cash deal valued at about $1.6 billion.

The offered price of $32 per share is a nearly 10 percent premium over Friday's closing price of $29.18. Ancestry.com's shares jumped 7.9 percent, or $2.30, to $31.48 in afternoon trading Monday.

The company operates a website for researching family history and has more than 2 million paying subscribers. It says more than 10 billion records have been added to its site over the past 15 years. The company develops and acquires systems that digitize handwritten historical documents, and it works with government archives, historical societies and religious institutions around the world.

Earlier this year, Ancestry.com created a nationwide name index from the 1940 U.S. Census after the National Archives posted it online. The index makes it easier for researchers to look up digital images of the actual census forms on Ancestry.com's website because they don't need a subject's exact address.

Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Youssef Squali called Ancestry.com "the world's largest online resource for family history" in a recent note.

Ancestry's services were used on the NBC show "Who Do You Think You Are?" which tracked celebrities as they researched their family history. Ancestry.com also was a sponsor of the show, and its shares took a hit in May, when NBC said it would not renew for a fourth season.

But Squali said the show will likely be revived on a cable network.

The company went public in 2009. Last year, it earned $62.9 million, or $1.29 per share, on nearly $400 million in revenue.

Ancestry.com said Monday the $32-per-share buyout offer represented a 41 percent premium over its closing price in early June before reports surfaced that the company had retained a financial adviser for a possible sale. Company shares have climbed from around $21 in early June and hit a 52-week high of $33.80 in early August before dropping back.

In July, The New York Times had reported that Ancestry.com was in talks with Providence Equity Partners and TPG Capital, as well as Permira, about a possible deal.

Ancestry.com said there will be no anticipated changes in its operating structure with the deal. The company will remain based in Provo, Utah, and it will continue to focus on investing in content, technology and expanding product offerings in areas like DNA.

CEO Tim Sullivan and Chief Financial Officer Howard Hochhauser will keep a majority of their equity stakes, and Spectrum Equity will remain an investor. Spectrum owns a 30 percent stake in the company.

The company expects the deal to close early next year. It will announce third-quarter earnings on Wednesday.

_____

AP Writer Randy Herschaft contributed to this report from New York.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Ancestry.com sold for $1.6 billion. Shares soar.
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Latest-News-Wires/2012/1022/Ancestry.com-sold-for-1.6-billion.-Shares-soar
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe