Plenty of Fish Dating Sites Sells For $575 Million

plenty of fish sale

Major dating site Plenty of Fish has been sold to the world’s largest online dating site, Match.com in a deal that has plenty of lawyers involved.

In a news release, Venable LLP said that it has co-advised, with Canadian business firm McMillan LLP, client PlentyOfFish Media, Inc. on its sale to the Match Group, a subsidiary of IAC (NASDAQ: IACI), for US$575 million in cash. The parties have entered into a definitive acquisition agreement and expect to close the transaction early in the fourth quarter.

PlentyOfFish, the Vancouver based online dating site, was founded in 2003 by CEO Markus Frind, and now has over 100 million registered users and over 4 million active daily users.

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The transaction is subject to the receipt of the approval from the Minister of Industry pursuant to the Investment Canada Act.

The Venable team was led by Philip von Mehren and Michele Maney of the firm’s New York office and Andrew Pratt of the firm’s Washington, DC office.

The McMillan team was led by Tom Theodorakis and Ryan Black and involved Peter Botz and Sandra Knowler, the Venables release announced.

The Match Group, which owns Match.com, has as it’s chairman, Gregory Blatt, who also happens to be a former Wachtell associate. Prior to his current post, Blatt served as chief executive officer of the group that owns Match.com, being the Barry Diller backed IAC/InterActiveCorp, CEO of IAC’s Match.com segment and executive vice president and general counsel of IAC, whose current in-house legal chief is former Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom associate Gregg Winiarski, reports Law.com.

Sources: Venables LLP and Law.com

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