Tinder Owner Match Draws Elliott Investment
Activist has roughly $1 billion stake and intends to meet with Match to discuss ways to improve online dating company’s performance
Elliott Investment Management has built a big stake in Match Group MTCH 3.30%increase; green up pointing triangle and plans to push the online dating company to take steps to boost its languishing stock.
The activist has built a position of roughly $1 billion in Match, the parent company of Tinder, Hinge and other dating platforms, according to people familiar with the matter.
Elliott intends to discuss with Match ways to turn the company’s performance around. The hedge fund’s specific demands, and whether or not it plans to pursue nominating director candidates, couldn’t be learned.
Match shares closed Monday at $37.89, bringing the company’s market capitalization to roughly $10 billion. In 2021, amid the Covid-19 pandemic and a boom in internet stocks, Match’s market capitalization soared well above $40 billion. More recently, a decline in paying customers and other factors have hurt the stock.
Besides Tinder and Hinge, Dallas-based Match’s portfolio of dating platforms includes OkCupid and Plenty of Fish, in addition to its namesake Match brand. New York media and internet holding company IAC/InterActive previously owned Match but fully separated from it in 2020.
The business dwarfs its publicly traded rivals including Bumble, valued at nearly $2 billion, and Grindr, about $1.5 billion.
Match’s Tinder app, the biggest dating site in the world by user count, booked roughly $1.8 billion in revenue in 2022, up 9% from 2021. Revenue for Hinge, its fastest-growing platform, surged 44% year over year.
More recently, analysts and investors have raised concerns about Tinder’s growth slowing earlier and more severely than expected. Match has also seen continued turnover in its C-suite, provoking some shareholder unease.
Match most recently named Bernard Kim, previously chief executive of Zynga, as CEO in 2022. Kim also oversees the Tinder business, according to the company’s website.
In November, Match reported third-quarter results that showed a continued decline in the number of “payers” on the Tinder app. The company further forecast that the drop was expected to get even worse in the current quarter, as Match felt the impact of price increases it began enacting earlier in 2023.
The company has said, however, the slowdown is a shorter-term blip in its broader turnaround plans. Its Hinge business, meanwhile, is expected to hit $1 billion in revenue in the next four years, analysts predict.
Elliott is known for taking on tech companies and others and forcing changes that include sales. One of the biggest and busiest activists, it has recently pursued campaigns at companies including Salesforce and Pinterest.
Elliott also recently gained a victory at wireless-tower owner Crown Castle, which in late December announced a review of its fiber business and replaced two directors on its board as part of a pact with the hedge fund that had been pushing for changes.