THE DEAL – May 7 – FriendFinder has ~$455M in debt outstanding. The company obtained forbearance agreements with the majority of its lenders. Those agreements were extended from their original February deadline through May 6, and so far, FriendFinder is mum on its next step. Mark Brooks, who runs Courtland Brooks, has a solution in mind. "FriendFinder is a good company with bad debt," Brooks said. "At some stage, patience will run out, and the lenders will have to take that company over and run it themselves. I'd love to see Conru more involved. I'd love to see him back at the helm," Brooks said. "He runs a tight ship." Brooks praised Conru's combination of innovation and focus. AdultFriendFinder.com faces stiff competition from Global Personals's Fling.com, and SexSearch.com. "It's really a two-horse race at this point," Brooks said about AdultFriendFinder and Fling. "But SexSearch is going in for the kill." Looking at the usage charts for these websites, Brooks remarked, "It looks like Fling.com is eating FriendFinder's lunch," crediting a new CEO who has done great things for Fling's business. Fling's unique views spiked to 8.2 M in April from 3.3M in January. AdultFriendFinder's views cratered to ~6M in April from 9.2M in January. SexSearch.com's numbers, meanwhile, have jumped to 2.3M in April from 146,841 daily unique views in January. Brooks believes online dating sites should be expanding their mobile offerings, since more users are now accessing dating sites from their mobile phones.
by Lisa Allen
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