FTC – Sep 26 – The Federal Trade Commission is suing Match Group for allegedly using fake accounts to get more people to sign up for paid subscriptions. "We believe that Match.com conned people into paying for subscriptions via messages the company knew were from scammers," said Andrew Smith, Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection. Match allows users to create profiles free of charge, but prohibits them from responding to messages without paying. The FTC alleges that millions of contacts that generated Match's "You caught his eye" notices came from accounts the company had already flagged as likely to be fraudulent. By contrast, Match prevented existing subscribers from receiving emails from a suspected fraudulent account. In a statement, Match Group dismissed the FTC accusations as "completely meritless" and says the allegations are supported by "consciously misleading figures." The FTC also alleges Match deceptively induced consumers to subscribe to Match.com by promising them a free six-month subscription if they did not "meet someone special," without adequately disclosing that consumers must meet numerous requirements before the company would honor the guarantee.
Category: Match Group
Facebook Is Undervalued by 25%
Match Group CEO Mandy Ginsberg on Expanding Into International Markets
CNBC – Sep 25 – Mandy Ginsberg, CEO at Match Group, joins "Squawk Box" to discuss pushing her company's dating sites/apps into an international market. "Today, 40% of relationship are through dating apps, and that's up 3% from 14 years ago", Mandy said. What is really changing are markets in Asia such as India, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia.
Facebook Dating Is a Threat to Match, But Not to Tinder
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Top Dating News – Facebook Dating U.S. Launch, Comscore UK Report, and Tinder’s Match Time
OPW – Sep 10 – Here's the top dating news in ~2 minutes. Subscribe to Two Minute Tuesdays (TMT) on Youtube (and turn on notifications) or to the podcast on Breaker, Google podcasts, Spotify, Anchor.
Match Analysts Unfazed by Facebook’s Expanded Dating Service
BLOOMBERG – Sep 5 – Match Group shares fell ~7% in Thursday trading after Facebook announced it would be expanding its dating service into the U.S. Facebook's dating feature was first unveiled in 2018 and prior to its U.S. launch it has previously been tested in 19 other countries. Despite Match's share-price drop, Bloomberg Intelligence wrote that there was "limited risk" for the company from Facebook.
by Ryan Vlastelica
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Tinder Seeks Arbitration for Ex-Exec’s Sexual Assault Claims
LAW360 – Aug 30 – Rosette Pambakian, a former Tinder marketing executive claiming the dating app and its parent company unlawfully fired her after conducting an investigation into her alleged sexual assault by Tinder's former CEO Gregory Blatt, must pursue her claims in arbitration. Rosette Pambakian, who was Tinder's head of marketing and communications, signed an agreement that requires her to resolve all employment-related issues outside of court, the dating app, parent company Match Group and Gregory Blatt told the judge Wednesday in a motion to compel arbitration.
Tinder Is Now the Top Dating App in Thailand
BANGKOKPOST – Aug 19 – In Thailand, Badoo was once the most downloaded dating app, but has been overtaken by Tinder. To Tinder, this is a surprising achievement because Asia was not their target market when the app was introduced in 2012. Seeing the high demand in Asia, Tinder is now working on building a new version of the app called "Tinder Lite". Tinder Lite will be 25% faster while consuming 20% less battery on devices and it will take up 25-times less storage space on Android device. Match Group believes Asia will comprise 25% of Tinder's total revenue by 2023.
by Sopheavuthtey Borin
See full article at Bangkok Post
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Top Equity Hedge Fund Cashes in on Online Dating
BLOOMBERG – Aug 18 – Helsinki-based HCP Focus, which has a slim portfolio of only 12 "high-conviction" stocks, has 16% of its funds invested in Match Group. HCP Focus manages ~70M euros and was the top long-only equity fund over the three years through the first quarter, according to BarclayHedge. It returned an average 22% a year in the past five years through July. Match is its biggest holding, followed by Amazon.com, which has been one of the main holdings since the start of the fund.
Match Group Is IAC’s Best Asset
BARRON'S – Aug 16 – Match is among IAC's greatest hits. The stock has nearly doubled this year alone, thanks largely to Tinder. IAC sold a portion of Match in a 2015 IPO at $12. The stock is now $85, and IAC's Match stake is worth close to $19B. It accounts for ~90% of IAC's current $21B market value. But Match is obscuring IAC's overall value. "Match has gotten so big and successful and is such a significant part of IAC, that one became a proxy for the other," IAC CEO Joey Levin says. So IAC is considering distributing Match shares to its shareholders in a tax-free transaction. And IAC is thinking about a similar handoff of its 84% stake in ANGI Homeservices. IAC's stakes in Match and ANGI are now worth more than IAC itself, so distributing those shares should unlock value. Without Match and ANGI, IAC would effectively be an incubator again, with a handful of promising businesses already generating considerable revenue. The best known is Vimeo which generated Q2 revenue of $45.7M, up 16% YOY.