This Match Is Going Public
An IPO for Those Who Think Love and Money Is a Match
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The Match Group, home of the hugely popular dating apps and sites Tinder, Match, Chemistry, OurTime, and OkCupid, will issue an IPO in the fourth quarter. Mashable is calling it “the world’s flirtiest IPO.” Barry Diller’s InterActive Corp. (IAC), which owns the Match Group and a slew of other Internet brands, also appointed Joey Levin, formerly the CEO of IAC’s Search & Applications, CEO of IAC.
Back in 1995 when Match.com first debuted, people were skeptical of online dating, but today, dating apps and sites are big business. According to IBISWorld, dating sites are expected to bring in $1.17 billion in revenue this year, with apps totaling another $628.8 million. Online dating accounts for 48.7 percent of the revenue from U.S. dating services, but mobile dating apps such as Tinder are on the rise with 26.2 percent of the market.
Related: The Startup That Turned Down $30 Million from Mark Cuban
The largest dating service companies are the Match Group, eHarmony, Zoosk, Plenty of Fish, and Spark Networks. The Match Group leads the category, with nearly 22 percent share of the market. The Wall Street Journal reported the Match Group accounted for nearly one-third, or 29 percent, of IAC’s overall revenue in 2014. In the most recent quarter, the Match Group’s revenue was $239.2 million, or 30 percent of IAC’s revenue of $772.5 million.
With their portfolio of dating sites in more than 200 countries the Match Group is well positioned to market to the large generation of millennials worldwide. More than 7 million people sign up for their products every month.
Related: Love at First Byte: The Magic of Online Dating
As for what the Match Group’s ticker symbol might be on the stock exchange, the company’s lips are sealed. Many of the good ones are already taken. LOV belongs to rival Spark Networks, owner of JDate.com, ChristianMingle.com, and BlackSingles.com. DATE is the ticker symbol for Jiayuan, China’s largest dating site. LUV is taken by Southwest Airlines. Arrythmia Research Technology has HRT.
Apparently KISS is still available—if the Match Group gets lucky.
GOP Tax Cuts Getting Less Popular, Poll Finds
Friday marked the six-month anniversary of President Trump’s signing the Republican tax overhaul into law, and public opinion of the law is moving in the wrong direction for the GOP. A Monmouth University survey conducted earlier this month found that 34 percent of the public approves of the tax reform passed by Republicans late last year, while 41 percent disapprove. Approval has fallen by 6 points since late April and disapproval has slipped 3 points. The percentage of people who aren’t sure how they feel about the plan has risen from 16 percent in April to 24 percent this month.
Other findings from the poll of 806 U.S. adults:
- 19 percent approve of the job Congress is doing; 67 percent disapprove
- 40 percent say the country is heading in the right direction, up from 33 percent in April
- Democrats hold a 7-point edge in a generic House ballot
Special Tax Break Zones Defined for All 50 States
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The U.S. Treasury has approved the final group of opportunity zones, which offer tax incentives for investments made in low-income areas. The zones were created by the tax law signed in December.
Bill Lucia of Route Fifty has some details: “Treasury says that nearly 35 million people live in the designated zones and that census tracts in the zones have an average poverty rate of about 32 percent based on figures from 2011 to 2015, compared to a rate of 17 percent for the average U.S. census tract.”
Click here to explore the dynamic map of the zones on the U.S. Treasury website.
Map of the Day: Affordable Care Act Premiums Since 2014
Axios breaks down how monthly premiums on benchmark Affordable Care Act policies have risen state by state since 2014. The average increase: $481.
Obamacare Repeal Would Lead to 17.1 Million More Uninsured in 2019: Study
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A new analysis by the Urban Institute finds that if the Affordable Care Act were eliminated entirely, the number of uninsured would rise by 17.1 million — or 50 percent — in 2019. The study also found that federal spending would be reduced by almost $147 billion next year if the ACA were fully repealed.
Your Tax Dollars at Work
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Mick Mulvaney has been running the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau since last November, and by all accounts the South Carolina conservative is none too happy with the agency charged with protecting citizens from fraud in the financial industry. The Hill recently wrote up “five ways Mulvaney is cracking down on his own agency,” and they include dropping cases against payday lenders, dismissing three advisory boards and an effort to rebrand the operation as the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection — a move critics say is intended to deemphasize the consumer part of the agency’s mission.
Mulvaney recently scored a small victory on the last point, changing the sign in the agency’s building to the new initials. “The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau does not exist,” Mulvaney told Congress in April, and now he’s proven the point, at least when it comes to the sign in his lobby (h/t to Vox and thanks to Alan Zibel of Public Citizen for the photo, via Twitter).