IAC, which owns the popular dating site, Match.com, has proposed to buyout a European dating site called “Meetic (News - Alert).”

The proposed purchase price is euro 15.00 per share, which is equal to about $21.57 in U.S. dollars.

Match.com owns about 27 percent of the outstanding shares of Meetic, which it received when it combined its European business with Meetic in 2009. Through Match Pegasus, Match owns about 6.1 million shares of Meetic.

“Today we are announcing a big step forward in strengthening our partnership with Meetic and aligning the companies for even greater growth,” Greg Blatt, CEO of IAC, said in a company statement.  “We believe people will increasingly meet online, and increasing our ownership stake allows us to leverage our commitments to product, marketing and technology innovation in the space across Europe. Meetic has done a fantastic job realizing the synergies from the 2009 merger, and now we believe we can apply the same lessons learned in revitalizing Match.com's growth trajectory in the U.S. beginning in 2009.” 

Philippe Chainieux, Meetic Group's executive vice president, added in the statement, which was carried on TMCnet, “Meetic's Executive Committee fully supports this transaction which, considering the globalization of the dating and matchmaking business, will offer Meetic new growth opportunities with the implementation of existing financial and industrial synergies between Match and Meetic.”

Match plans to submit the offer to France’s securities regulator, Autorite des Marches Financiers, in some two to three weeks for review.

Meetic is the leading European online dating company. It operates in 16 European countries, and is available in 13 languages.

Match.com has seen record growth over the last year. Core revenues jumped 18 percent to $93.3 million during the first quarter of 2011, with a 22 percent increase in subscribers.

Match.com operates online dating sites in 25 countries, 8 languages and in five continents, and is a business of IAC. IAC operates over 50 Internet businesses in 30 countries.

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