A peak into the economics of the genealogy industry:
The Ancestry.com S-1:
sec.gov
Ancestry.com Files For $75 Million IPO
Rafat Ali
paidContent.org
Aug 3, 2009 7:31 PM ET
Genealogy company Ancestry.com has filed for an IPO and plans to raise about $75 million in the offering, according to an SEC filing. It plans to list on Nasdaq or NYSE under the symbol ACOM, and Morgan Stanley and BofA Merrill Lynch are the lead underwriters. The company, founded in 1983 (yes!) ad based in Provo, UT, changed its name from The Generations Network to Ancestry.com Inc (again) last month, in preparation for the IPO. The company has genealogy related sites and services including the flagship Ancestry.com, Family Tree Maker, myfamily.com, MyCanvas, Rootsweb, Genealogy.com, Jiapu.com and its international Ancestry sites.
It sold a majority stake in 2007, to previous investor Spectrum Equity Investors, the media/communication PE firm, for about $300 million as part of a recap; other investors included Sorenson Media, CMGI@Ventures and EsNet Group. Prior to that it had raised about $95 million in three “significant” rounds. The new money raised through IPO will be used to repay a portion of its credit facility, working capital, and do some M&A, it says.
Some highlights of the company, from its S-1:
— almost one million paying subscribers around the world as of June 30, 2009.
— revenues have increased from $122.6 million in 2004 to $197.6 million in 2008, a CAGR of of 12.7 percent.
— has invested about $80 million to date in making the genealogy content available to subscribers, to acquire or license, digitize, index and publish additional records.
— Spectrum holds about 67 percent of the outstanding shares of its common stock
— For six month of 2009, it had revenues of $99.9 million with profits of $8.18 million, compared to $87.4 million revenues in first six month of 2008 and profits of $1.24 million.
— the potential introduction of the TV show “Who Do You Think You Are?” in U.S. in early 2010, following a similar show on BBC in 2006.
— Depending on the size of the offering, we may be required to use 25% of the net proceeds we receive to repay a portion of the amount outstanding under our credit facility (lenders include CIT Lending Services Corporation)
— This credit facility has a maturity date of December 5, 2012 and had an outstanding balance of approximately $117.1 million and an interest rate of approximately 4.1% as of June 30, 2009.
— Our average monthly revenue per subscriber was $16.09 in 2008.
— As of June 30, 2009, we had $62.5 million of total liquidity, comprised of $52.6 million in cash and cash equivalents and the ability to borrow $9.9 million under our revolving credit facility.
— On December 5, 2007, in connection with the Spectrum investment, the operating company entered into a credit facility with a syndicate of lenders consisting of a $140.0 million term loan and $10.0 million revolving commitment with a syndicate of lenders.
paidcontent.org |
