(Online Dating Industry Journal) CGI Holding Corporation (d/b/a Think Partnership Inc.) has just announced that it has closed its acquisition of privately held Vintacom Media Group Inc. Think Partnership Inc. has acquired all of the stock of Vintacom in exchange for 1,095,618 shares of THK common stock and $2.75 million in cash, of which $465,000 was held back pending the resolution of certain potential liabilities.
Vintacom shareholders will also be entitled to an earnout payment, half in cash and half in the THK common stock, if the average annual pre-tax earnings of Vintacom during the first twelve full calendar quarters following the closing exceed $1.1 million. Think Partnership Inc. expects the acquisition will add at least $1.1 million to its pre-tax income each year, and to be accretive to earnings.
Vintacom, founded in 1999 with headquarters in Edmonton, Alberta Canada, provides online dating technologies throughout Canada and hosts over 120 online dating sites in Canada and the United States. Vintacom provides online dating technology for several sites, including American Greetings’ SpecialSomeone.com, Canada.com’s online dating services, Dating.com, and Soulmate.com, in addition to two of North America’s largest offline dating services, Great Expectations and The Right One / Together. Some of the dating sites owned and operated by Vintacom are DreamMates.com, SingleMe.com, and PassionatePersonals.com. They recently launched UnitedDating.com, a site where online daters can automatically register for several dating sites through one registration.
In 2002 Vintacom launched the Relationship Exchange platform, a consortium of online dating companies, with DreamMates.com and CupidJunction.com as the founding partners. Through the Relationship Exchange, Vintacom’s network of independent online affiliated dating sites are able to share a large dateabase of personal ads. Think Partnership’s online dating site Cherish.com will now become a member of the Relationship Exchange.
According to Think Partnership, Vintacom has hosted over 14 million dating profiles since 1999, has over 2 million current profiles in its database and adds, on average, 200,000 new profiles each month. Although most subscribers live in the United States or Canada, roughly 30 percent of the profiles listed on Relationship Exchange dating sites are international.
Brad Hogg, the president and CEO of Vintacom, will continue to lead the business after the acquisition closing under a three-year employment agreement. Of the acquisition, he said, “We are ecstatic to join the Think Partnership family. Over the past six years as a private company, Vintacom has leveraged its way to become a leading competitor in the online dating space. We have built a network with the critical mass needed to drive conversions and have developed solid, feature-rich technology which has prepared us to bring Vintacom to new levels. Joining Think Partnership will be the catalyst to make that happen in a big way."
Scott P. Mitchell, Think Partnership’s president, added, “In my years of competing with Vintacom, I have always had a deep respect for their innovative affiliate approach to the marketing of online dating services and the leveraging of technology in their Relationship Exchange network. Brad Hogg and his talented group of 100 professionals will add to Think Partnership's tremendous and ever-growing intellectual capital, continually developing creative approaches to technology and marketing…Vintacom's ingenious approach to acquiring leads and customers will be invaluable as we expand our marketing expertise throughout the THK portfolio. What online dating represents to us is a profitable way to aggregate market reach and reinvest that reach, know-how, and capital toward building the world's most comprehensive interactive advertising business.”
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