AFF Acquired By Penthouse - $500 Mill

[simon johnson]

Penthouse has acquired Various, Inc. and its subsidiaries for $500 million in cash and securities. Various, Inc has adultfriendfinder.com, passion.com, alt.com, outpersonals.com, cams.com as well as many other domains.

One of the interesting things about this acquisition is that their press release says that they have a "member base of more than 260 million consumers and a total paid subscriber list in excess of 1.2 million."

My thoughts:

• Very impressive consumer base.
• Horrible paid subscriber conversion rate.
• Huge opportunity for Penthouse to sell stuff to their consumer base.

http://prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/12-12-2007/0004721536&EDATE=

 

[BobDiGiTaL]

I would think these deals would happen more often.

When given the opportunity to buy domains like "adultfriendfinder.com, passion.com, alt.com, outpersonals.com, cams.com," why would you not buy?

 

[Theo]

Hugh Hefner is alive still? I thought that was his mummy.

 

[whitebark]

"Horrible paid subscriber conversion rate."

Anyone who has been an affiliate knows this.

 

[Raider]

Nice acquisition.

With the nickel and dime sales tactics these sites use, its not surprising the conversion rate is so low.

 

[hugegrowth]

This is one of those deals where you wonder why someone didn't buy them sooner. AFF is a huge site for adult dating, great market to target for penthouse. I read an article recently about the guy who started AFF and the other sites, and AFF by far does the best. The stats were impressive.

 

[intellect]

Hugh Hefner is alive still? I thought that was his mummy.

Actually its Larry Flynt, you got the old porn dudes mixed up.

Edit: Bob Guccione is the CEO of PentHouse, hows that for fact checking. My porn iq is low i guess.

 

[Theo]

I always liked the "Jesus H. Christ" editorials of Hustler

 

[QuantumBeam]

A = All
F = Fine
F = Females
:smilewinkgrin:

 

[HomerJ]

actually Bob sold it a few years back as i recall, ( yea, i was about to point out that you were both wrong, not larry or hugh! and yea, i did read the articles, Penthouse actually broke some good stories :lol: ! )

AFF's model is called 'Freemium'. you get a free membership (virtually worthless) and pay to upgrade to premium membership to get more features. i don't think the conversions that bad, considering.