The following article outlines the possibilities:
Neither Facebook nor Google Is Buying Ancestry.com
The genealogy website operator saw its stock spike on buyout speculation.
By Rick Aristotle Munarriz
Maybe it’s time for Who Do You Think You Are? to be renamed How I Met Your Parents.
Shares of Ancestry.com soared 11% yesterday on reports that the leading genealogy website operator is about to put itself up for sale.
A source “with knowledge of the situation” is telling Bloomberg that the company is working with Frank Quattrone’s Qatalyst Partners to weigh the matter and smoke out a buyer if it decides to go in that direction.
The speculative buzz comes nearly a month after the stock got crushed when Comcast‘s NBC Universal revealed that it not be renewing Who Do You Think You Are? — the primetime genealogy series that finds Ancestry.com helping celebrities dive deep into the roots of their family trees — for a fourth season.
Bloomberg’s source indicates that the buyer will likely come from the ranks of hungry private-equity firms, and that seems about right.
An analyst in the story offers up that Google and Facebook would also be logical suitors, but neither party makes sense.
For starters, Facebook can’t be interested in Ancestry.com because it’s very profitable and generates gobs of revenue. Yes, that’s a lame Instagram joke. Seriously though, what would Ancestry.com add to Google of Facebook? Google would be more likely to blow up the premium model in favor of a more far-reaching, though potentially less lucrative, free ad-based genealogy solution. Facebook is also perpetually battling the silly rumor that it will begin to charge its more than 900 million active members to use the site. The last thing it needs is to add fuel to that nonsensical fire by buying a site where you have to pay to gain access to research tools.
Click here to read the full article.