Ancestry.com to be sold for $1.6 billion (to a European private equity firm)

[sinkingfeeling]

http://money.cnn.com/2012/10/22/news/companies/ancestry-dot-com/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Ancestry.com, the online genealogy site, agreed Monday to be purchased by Permira, a European private equity firm, for $1.6 billion.

The purchase price is a 41% premium from its closing on June 5, just before a press report that the company had hired Qatalyst Partners as an adviser to look into a possible sale of the company. Shares of Ancestry.com (ACOM) jumped 10.7% on heavy trading the next day, and got as high as $33.80 a share in early July before retreating.

[BumRushDaShow]

1. Have been waiting to see if anyone finds if Bain has any interest in the other firms

[grantcart]

2. wow. who are the current shareholders?

[flamingdem]

3. Ancestry.com is actually a well conceived site

I found out so much about my forebears -- and others in the family line on the site found me and then added lines back to the 1400s!

[tridim]

4. Online genealogy, my other billion dollar idea.. Rejected by short-sighted management.

I also developed youtube 4 years before YouTube did. Managment didn't understand it (and bandwith was expensive at the time), so it was shit-canned.

Oh well.

[TwilightGardener]

5. I made the mistake of signing up with them years ago--

never again. They wouldn't let me cancel my trial subscription or whatever it was--fucking RELENTLESS, the modern-day Columbia House.

[hedda_foil]

6. I thought the Mormons own Ancestry.com.

Does anyone know if that's true?

[FreeState]

7. Individual members do, not the Church

The Church owns familysearch.org. Ancestry.com is owned by people in Provo - most likely they are members of the Church but not THE church.

[1-Old-Man]

8. Aren't the shares publicly traded?

I'm not sure what you mean by it being owned by people in Provo, UT (presumably). Couldn't I call up a broker and buy 100 shares if I wanted to?

[Viva_La_Revolution]

9. I signed up when the rumors were flying 4 months ago

I wanted to get the info I could before it's bought out. Now it will be even more profit driven and quality will degrade.