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The Match Group Shares Rise 23% As Company Debuts On Market

IACmatchgroup

Yesterday, The Match Group debuted on the stock market, with shares performing well on its first day of trading.

Shares of The Match Group were initially priced at $12, and closed the day 23% higher, at $14.74.

This was after shares jumped as high as $14.89 during the day on Thursday.

The Match Group was looking to raise $400m with its IPO, at an initial valuation of around $3bn, and is looking to sell 33.3m shares.

The company decided to price its shares at the lower end of the expected range of $12-$14, one of the reasons shares jumped on its debut day.

IAC, who is spinning off The Match Group, still owns 85% of the dating company.

Speaking to CNBC’s Squwak Box about the IPO, The Match Group CEO Greg Blatt said: “It’s been a choppy market and not as frothy as it was when we set out to do this a while back. And now the events of the last two weeks have made people nervous and everything else. I think the price to get liquidity is higher than it’s been.

“Tinder has been great for us. Our category has been around for a long time, but historically it had been an over-30s-type crowd or late 20s. Tinder really opened up the entire 20s population for this category.”

The IPO came the day after Tinder CEO Sean Rad gave an embarrassing interview with the Evening Standard, which The Match Group had to distance themselves from prior to its public offering.

In the interview, Rad makes a series of PR gaffes, such as confusing sodomy with saiposexual, and saying that a supermodel was “begging” him for sex.

The Match Group even filed a last-minute submission to the SEC, saying the article – which included disputed figures about the number of Tinder users – was “not approved or condoned by” the company.

Read the interview here.

Simon Edmunds

Simon is the former editor of Global Dating Insights. Born in Newcastle, he has an English degree from Queen Mary, London and after working for the NHS, trained as a journalist with the Press Association. Passionate about music, journalism and Newcastle United.

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