Online Personals Watch: News on the Online Dating Industry and Business

Meetic/Match Joint-Venture In Latin America Completed

PRESS RELEASE - Mar 10 - As announced on 4th February 2010, Meetic and Match.com, a subsidiary of IAC, signed a strategic agreement to create a joint venture in Latin America. As foreseen by this agreement, Meetic and Match.com have thus contributed their respective activities on the South American continent to the new entity: Meetic’s ParPerfeito site and Match.com’s activities in other Latin American countries. Following the deal, Match.com and Meetic each own 50% of the new joint venture’s equity, whilst Match.com will control the entity’s operations. Read the full press release HERE.

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This is the news for February 10th through February 15th, 2010. Here is the news we covered:

• Visits to dating sites showing a general decline
• PlentyofFish vs. Match.com
• Mobile Dating and Virtual Goods are big business
• Online Dating is becoming commonplace
• Meetic has posted 2009 revenues
• Match.com and Meetic partner in Latin America
• Match.com joins forces with Neu.de
• New ad campaign for Match directly targets women
• Easydate and Dating Factory partner up
• IMVU teams up with Zoosk
• Avid Life Media and Friend Finder Networks shelve IPOs
• Matchmaking industry going strong

Meetic And Match Forge Joint Venture In Latin America

PRESS RELEASE - Feb 4 - Meetic and Match.com will contribute their respective properties in South America to the new joint venture: Meetic’s Brazilian site, ParPerfeito, and Match.com’s activities in other South and Latin American countries. Match.com and Meetic will each own 50% of the economic interest in the entity, and Match.com will control the new entity’s operations. Match.com will pay Meetic $3M in cash at the closing, which is expected by March 15, 2010. Meetic’s participation is subject to put-and-call rights that can be triggered beginning in the fourth year, whereby Match could purchase Meetic’s stake at fair market value at that time. An additional payment of $1.5M could be triggered at that time. Read the full press release here.

Mark Brooks: Match.com operates in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela. It also owns Netclubencuentro.com, but this website looks to be down now. It was working ~2 months ago when we were researching the South American market. The South American idating market skews a lot younger, and has low registration to paying member conversions. Its still a growth market, a few years behind the USA market growth curve.

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