Xing the Atlantic
Posted by Thomas Rasmussen on January 14, 2009
-Contact Thomas Rasmussen
In 2008, online social networking was the buzzword of choice. But as is the case with most tech bubbles, it imploded nearly as quickly as it ballooned. The year that started with a bang (Bebo’s record $850m sale to AOL in March and Plaxo’s sale to Comcast for an estimated $150m in May) ended with a whimper. Several smaller social-networking companies sold in fire sales, resulting in severe VC write-downs. And we expect this to carry on well into 2009.
Consider the case of business-focused Xing, which finished last year with a $4.1m tuck-in of New York City-based socialmedian. When we checked in with Xing before the holiday break, M&A and attractive valuations were the dominant themes. We fully expect the company to follow up on this with more acquisitions in 2009, particularly as social-networking competition goes global. Based in Germany, Xing has used M&A to expand geographically. In addition to its US deal last month, in 2007 Xing picked up Spanish competitors eConozco and Neurona. Furthermore, we understand that Xing was one of the active bidders for Plaxo, which would have represented a significant drive into the US market. On the flip side, US social-networking giants Facebook and LinkedIn are actively trying to expand across the Atlantic.
For Xing, there are literally dozens of US business-focused vertical social networks that would fit in with its expansion strategy. And the company has the resources to do deals. (It’s the only significant publicly traded social-networking company, plus it holds $61m in cash, no debt and is cash-flow positive on roughly $50m in trailing 12-month revenue.) Companies that we think might make a good match for Xing include Fast Pitch, APSense, Zerodegrees, and, dare we say, even Twitter.
Social networking M&A fizzles
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Source: The 451 M&A KnowledgeBase
Filed Under Europe, IPO, M&A, Online recruitment, Social Networks, VC, Web 2.0, media, online advertising, technology stocks, verticals |
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2 Responses to “Xing the Atlantic”
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Also good matches would be viadeo.com or moikrug.ru. Both of them a market leaders in there languages.
Hi Peter, thanks for your comment. I completely agree. And while we’re on the topic, there are indeed many more international targets that are a good fit. I expect we’ll see a lot of consolidation here driven by Xing as well as LinkedIn (Facebook seems to be content and are succeeding immensely with organic expansion)