European private equity firm Permira has completed its acquisition of Ancestry.com for $1.6bn or $32 per share in cash. The price is a 40 percent premium from the price when word of the company being offered for sale surfaced in June and includes vesting of any outstanding options. As a result of the deal, Ancestry.com will carry ”just under $1 billion” in debt. This comes news comes 2 weeks after reports that Ancestry.com would not be able to proceed with the sale unless it disclosed more information about the deal before a shareholder vote on December 27 2012 (Source).
Ancestry.com officials were required to change revenue projections and publicly disclose that provisions of the deal barred other bidders from attempting to top Permira’s offer, said Delaware Chancery Court Judge Leo Strine. The vote took place as scheduled with the sale approved by shareholders owning approximately 75% of Ancestry.com common stock. Permira has since acquired all outstanding shares of Ancestry.com and its stock ceased trading on the NASDAQ on December 28th 2012.
Genealogy website Ancestry.com is the world’s largest online family history resource has more than two million subscribers who pay at least $12.95 a month for its content and online tools. More than 11 billion records have been added to the site in the past 16 years. Ancestry users have created more than 41 million family trees containing approximately 4 billion profiles. The press release for the transaction states that “There are no anticipated changes in the Ancestry.com operations.”
The buyout group includes the private-equity firm’s co-investors; members of Ancestry.com’s management, including Chief Executive Tim Sullivan and Chief Financial Officer Howard Hochhauser; and Spectrum Equity, which owns about 30 percent of Ancestry.com.
USA, Utah & UK, London
Fusion Corporate Partners 
You must be logged in to post a comment.