As you may already know, Ancestry.com has been talking with potential buyers. The idea is that Ancestry.com will go from being a public company to a private one. Right now, it looks like Permira is the company most likely to buy the genealogy giant.
If you’ve been following this story, then you may recall that Ancestry.com had been talking with several potential buyers. Some were turned off when Ancestry.com asked for higher bids, while other seemed to find it acceptable.
In September of 2012, Reuters noted that it looked like there were three companies that were interested in bidding for Ancestry.com. Those companies were Hellman & Freedman LLC, Permira Advisers LLP, and TPG Capital LP. The talks were private. It was expected that Ancestry.com would make a decision by the end of September of 2012.
Now, in October of 2012, there has been an update to the story. It looks as though Permira Advisers LLP could be the company that buys Ancestry.com. Of course, this isn’t set in stone, and things could still change.
Permira Advisors LLP has been focused on private equity investing since 1985. The company makes “long term investments in companies with the ambition of transforming their performance and driving sustainable growth”. The company is based in London.
There has been talk that the selling price could be more than $1.5 billion. It has been said that Ancestry.com was asking for more than $35.00 per share, and that the original bids did not meet that price point.
What does this mean for genealogists who are members of Ancestry.com? It means that there is good reason to believe that Ancestry.com is quite serious about putting itself up for sale. The best advice I can give you is to pay attention to the news for more updates about the potential buyer.
It might be a good idea to read over the Ancestry.com blog every so often, just to see what is announced there. They recently announced on their blog that the company had acquired 1000memories, makers of the ShoeBox app. There is a good possibility that the Ancestry blog might have a post after everything is official that gives details about what, exactly, to expect.
Image by 401(K)2012 on Flickr