InterActiveCorp (IAC) plans an initial public offering of Match.com. IAC chairman Barry Diller said Thursday that its board has approved a plan for an initial public offering of The Match Group, that houses Tinder, Match and OKCupid.
IACI also named Joey Levin, the former head of its search and applications business — its largest division, — as its new CEO. Greg Blatt will remain chairman and Sam Yagan CEO of The Match Group, which includes Match.com, Tinder and OKCupid. The company has had no CEO since the move was planned about 18 months ago, the combination of the Match.com into a separate business.
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IAC chairman said, “As many know from our actions over the last 20 years, I’m not a believer in simply agglomerating assets in perpetuity. I’ve long felt that as entities grow into size and maturity it’s healthy to give them separation and independence from a mother church.”
“Over the last two decades, ” Diller added, “IAC and its progeny have grown into seven separate public companies with a current shareholder value of over $44 billion – given that we started with a base of $275 million, it’s a more than satisfactory record.”
“Since that time we’ve grown the company substantially, more than quadrupling the company’s value, with The Match Group leading the way – and so now, under the superb leadership of Greg Blatt and Sam Yagan, we want to take the step of offering the public the ability to own shares directly in this singular area of Internet activity, ” Diller said.
He finalised, “As for IAC, we now have a group of assets with great potential and, with the appointment of Joey Levin as CEO, a leader who has the youth, energy and ability to develop them in hopefully the same growth track as has been demonstrated throughout our 20 year history. We start with nearly 20 individual businesses, a strong balance sheet and I believe the same level of ambition as we had at the beginning.”
