Big Dating Site Rollup begins.

Looks like the guys behind think partnership have created yet another shell company.     They’ve moved over the dating assests of  (AMEX: THK)  to  a shell and now began an acquisition spree.   They just acquired the largest offline dating service.    These offline dating sites tend to sell memberships at $3,000 a year,  which is far higher then any online dating site gets.

I had a lot of investment bankers contact me last year and the start of this year.   Many of them wanted to roll up the industry but with so many of the major dating sites losing money no one has dared.    It looks like the new approach is to combine online and offline dating.   The only problem is that this new company doesn’t have a major presence in the online dating market.   They have a big adult dating site, and vintacom which is a application service provider for hundreds of dating sites.   Meetic is shopping for a North American expansion and shell company  “Mountains West” hunting for a large american dating site.    That probably puts date.com, Zencon and Cupid.com in play,  I wonder which gets sold first?    True.com has been trying to sell its self for years,  with no takers.  Match.com might make a defensive aquisition,  Should be an interesting new year as the dating industry once again goes through major upheaval.