Florida-based FriendFinder Networks (formerly Penthouse Media Group), a group of sites that includes Penthouse and Adult FriendFinder, has filed a registration statement with the SEC to go public.
Little known Russian investment bank Renaissance Capital is representing them in the deal. The company hopes to raise $460 million in the IPO.
The registration statement is still preliminary, but it gives deep insights on the financial condition of the company. Revenues for the first three quarters of 2008 were $244 million. The company claims 946,598 subscribers to its adult services.
The primary use of the proceeds from the IPO, the company says, is to pay off the nearly half billion dollars in debt on its books.
Penthouse acquired Adult FriendFinder in December 2007 for approximately $400 million.
Well given that digg can barely make 2 million a year in revenues, its good to know that at least someone out there knows how to bring in the cash
These guys aren’t making a profit. They are only going IPO to try to save their own butts.
“FriendFinder had revenue of $243 million, operating income of $17.6 million and a net loss of $32.3 million.”
On top of this they have over $450 million in debit that they can’t pay back.
Those are some BIG debts but why go public (especially now) when you can get the same money in a few years time. I am guessing their business is only going upwards, not downwards.
Jon
http://blog.legendarylife.com
sounds like a D.P.O. – Debt Public Offering.
Porn sells!!!
@M2Mz: it sure does — its a huge industry.
Typical arrington post… wtf… interesting to see what sites you are monitoring… I remain with my conclusion that you are sexually frustrated…
What are you on about? Give the size of AFF it’s surprising there aren’t MORE stories about it on TC.
If there’s a business that can do well in this economy, it’s porn. I mean, dating. Right.
Just read the S-1. The most important point is that the acquisition was funded primarily by Notes which is why there is so much debt now. So now the company is trying to go public to raise equity cash to pay off the previous owners Various Inc.
Also there is a $60M+ issue where the previous owners did not collect/pay VAT in European countries so that’s part of why the purchase price looks only in the $400M’s even though it was originally announced at $500M.
Thanks G,
That makes things much clearer. I was wondering what was going on with this. Didn’t make much sense.
Wish MA had dug into that level and explained it to us.
Merry Christmas & Happy New Year from Vietnam.
forALLtoALL’s Community
AFF is the biggest scam on the Net.
agreed. AFF huge scam. but legal
I read this and I thought “Adult Friend Finder’s files are public? Oooh, what sort?”
I need a life…
lol, that’s exactly how I read it, too. Except my reaction was, “Oh shit, I hope I didn’t use my real name there!”
They are indeed public. VERY public.
At the very least, you can view the entire text someone’s profile and their picture, not the thumbnail, without even being a member.
Yep, AFF wants you to pay for that, but you don’t have to. With some ingenuity, you can see other stuff as well.
Worst of all, that entire system is indexed by Google and others. I can only assume it is done deliberately because the URLs they feed to search engine are not the URLs they would want their members to discover.
I was not pleased when I discovered just how public that data really is.
I am an account holder in the system. I did go out with other members. It’s a lot more work than it should be. I no longer have gold privileges as I fail to see value in having them at this time.
I hear they have some *stiff* competition. They’re really putting themselves *out there*. Let’s hope the market doesn’t go *limp*.
They’re good at *hard* selling so I see no reason why revenues would *shrink* or *dip* in a financial bunghole unless it’s a bubble(butt).
Tits.
No doubt Porn is a big Industry. Consumption of such content and services is increasing. Also with current market scenario, frustration leads people to consume such content…
Porn Industry is now a good option for entrepreneurs to do business. After Playboy, AFF is becoming BIG brand on Internet. Should become case study for Management students!
Have you seen playboy’s stock lately? They aren’t doing so well..
Yep, I also thought the headline meant that files belonging to AdultFriendFinder were being released to the public. The truth is so much less intriguing.
IPOs are weird in these troubled times, and well, AdultFirendFinder is also a weird phenomenon.
Merry Christmas!
Interesting. Bought 100% of AFF for $400MM a year ago. Now looking to sell x% of AFF plus what? This article would have been a lot more interesting if it defined the variable x and included a multi-period chart showing all units by revenue, EBITDA, members, growth, margins, marketing line.
Thanks Micheal, that makes my christmass, I think this will 10x my valuation
, new home page 1 hour ago, 1st in six years.
There’s one to add to our portfolio! COOL….
A friend just showed me Redtube. Hmmm. Who are all these (mostly women) rubbing themselves?
What do they get out of this?
Money.
Redtube, pornotube, youporn, and probably a ton others.
there is also http://www.nudetube.com
As a current employee of AFF, it’s really funny I had to hear it from TechCrunch…. gotta love the internal communication.
Did any of you even read the document? They are going public because they need the cash bad and risk going under without it. The debt is being called in now because they failed to meet certain requirements, most likely performance oriented. This means they owe huge amounts of money now, and they don’t have it. Their liabilities are greater than their assets. I don’t see how they’ll be able to go public with numbers like these. They also owe a large amount of money to governments of the EU due to the failure to collect VAT from EU customers over the last X number of years.
Their debt looks bad, but it’s really no problem. The debt owners have zero incentive to call them on it.
AFF is only used for webmasters to earn money but it spoils many youths life particularly females and married womens like lonely wifes including whos husband is in foriegn or nightshift worker or too aged
by wellwisher
http://www.xgucci.com – its kinda like adult friend finder, only free – these guys should be big a couple of years…
What do members of the site do?
You know it has closed down, suddenly and without warning and without refund I might add.
I’m a proud member. I don’t care what you think.
I just feeling kind of jipped.
I hear they have some *stiff* competition. They’re really putting themselves *out there*. Let’s hope the market doesn’t go *limp*.
I have never actually met a real girl on adult friend finder..that site is nothing but a wild goose chase.luckily there are better sites out there
Uhm sounds strange…
Hey Arrington,
Do you even read the comments posted on your site? For days now, some twit(s) have posted either 2nd or 3rd with this tinyurl.com weblink to some “game” website. With all the malicious code exploits in the wild, it would be trivial to have this set up to inject the user’s browser & hijack his computer.
Don’t believe me? Go back and read the comments from all the posts over the past week and you’ll see the same little spammy posts sitting there.
At least you (or one of your many off-boasted interns) could do, would be to monitor your own comment boards for such digital link trash and clean up the comments.
You owe your readers at least as much.