Oakley Capital Complete Sale Of Parship Stake

Oakley Capital Investments has completed the sale of a controlling stake in Parship Elite to ProSiebenSat.1 Media.

Originally announced on 5th September, the deal sees German mass media group ProSiebenSat.1 purchase 50% of dating company Parship for €100m.

The deal values Parship at €300m, which represents a return of 3.6x on Oakley Capital’s original investment.

Oakley Capital bought the company from Holtzbrinck Digital GmbH, a subsidiary of Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH & Co., last May for €20.9m.

The investment firm, run by Time Out owner Peter Dubens, has therefore made a 150% return from selling half its 86% stake.

The transaction values Oakley Capital Limited’s indirect economic interest in Parship at €67m, including its cash returns of €43m.

This will result in an uplift of £19m (52%) over the carrying value reported on 30th June 2016.

And now, Oakley has confirmed the transaction has completed following approval from the relevant regulatory authorities.

Parship Elite Group, which has over 230 employees in its Hamburg headquarters, owns European dating brands Parship and ElitePartners.

ProSiebenSat.1 has said it plans to grow the online dating brand with TV advertising, which it said will be “particularly conducive” to pushing growth in the German market.

Earlier this month, Parship got a new logo as ProSiebenSat.1 began its media push, unveiling a new set of TV ads.