Bryan, Garnier & Co advises AUFEMININ SA, the No.1 publisher of women’s websites worldwide, on its 100% acquisition of UK based Netmums.com
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Paris, August 30th, 2011 – Bryan Garnier & Co, the pan-European investment bank focused on growth companies, is proud to announce that it has acted as sole financial advisor to Aufeminin on its acquisition of Netmums.com for an undisclosed sum.
Headquartered in Paris France and listed on the Euronext Paris stock exchange (Ticker: FEM), the aufeminin.com Group is the No.1 publisher of women’s websites worldwide with 39.3 million unique visitors from France, Germany, the UK, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Poland, Switzerland, Canada, Morocco, Tunisia and Vietnam.
aufeminin.com has been present in the UK since 2005 with sofeminine.co.uk, which recorded 0.6 million unique visitors (Comscore Jun-11). The acquisition of Netmums.com makes the aufeminin.com group the market leader and gives it an added competitive edge for advertising clients in realizing Pan-European campaigns. In 2010, the aufeminin.com Group reached turnover of EUR 40.5 million.
Established by three founders in 2000, London-based Netmums.com is a parenting website “designed for mums by mums”, its main features being editorial content, discussion forums and chats. The Netmums.com website operates on the basis of contributions from its users, and has a UK audience of 0.7 million unique users (7 million page impressions), showing a growth of 36 percent compared to the previous year. On the basis of this successful, profitable business model, Netmums.com generated a turnover of EUR 3.1 million in the fiscal year ending April 2011. The deal will allow Aufeminin Group to gain a stronger foothold in the UK market, while Netmums will gain access to a wider network. Co-founders Sioban Freegard and Sally Russell will remain at the head of Netmums along with their entire team. They will be joined by an Aufeminin executive in the UK.
Siobhan Freegard, CEO of Netmums.com, says that the deal will ensure the parenting site’s stability and future growth. “With this deal we gain long term security to continue providing support, advice and entertainment to mums and also the opportunity to work alongside a respected women’s website publisher to learn what we can about the women’s website market,” she said.
Marie-Laure Sauty, Aufeminin Group CEO, said the deal will pave the way for future synergies between the UK sites of Netmums and Sofeminine. “Integrating such a complementary website into our group will allow us to increase our female audience in the UK. It’s a very important market for us and there’s huge potential for further growth, development and synergy between sofeminine.co.uk and Netmums,” she said.
Bruno Tourme, Head to Bryan Garnier & Co London commented: “The completion of this transaction comes after a thorough screening of the UK market for aufeminin.com which has allowed the group to find the best target according to its strategy.”
Mathieu Daouphars, Director Corporate Finance at Bryan, Garnier & Co, added: “This new transaction comes after the fundraisings of Commentçamarche and Espace Max, the disposal of TeleMarket to SuperU and the IPOs of ConcoursMania and of LeadMedia and confirms the dynamism of Bryan, Garnier & Co’s teams in the Internet sector.”
Virginie Lazès, Managing Partner, Head of Corporate Finance at Bryan, Garnier & Co, ended: “This cross-border transaction demonstrates our capability to advise and support the development of our international clients thanks to our network of offices : Paris, London, New-York and New Dehli”.
For more information, please contact:
- Virginie Lazès / Managing Partner – Head of Corporate Finance / +33 1 56 68 75 85 / vlazes@bryangarnier.com
- Bruno Tourme / Managing Partner, Head of Technology / +44 20 7332 2551 / btourme@bryangarnier.com
- Mathieu Daouphars / Director – Corporate Finance / +33 1 56 68 75 62 / mdaouphars@bryangarnier.com
About AUFEMININ.COM
Headquartered in Paris France and listed on the Euronext Paris stock exchange (Ticker: FEM), the aufeminin.com Group is the No.1 publisher of women’s websites worldwide with 39.3 million unique visitors from France, Germany, the UK, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Poland, Switzerland, Canada, Morocco, Tunisia and Vietnam. aufeminin.com is also the owner of Smart AdServer, which develops and markets premium ad serving solutions to media outlets and publishers for managing web ad display, cell phone and iPad campaigns.
About NETMUMS.COM
Established by three founders in 2000, London-based Netmums.com is a parenting website “designed for mums by mums”, its main features being editorial content, discussion forums and chats. The Netmums.com website operates on the basis of contributions from its users, and has a UK audience of 0.7 million unique users (7 million page impressions), showing a growth of 36 percent compared to the previous year. On the basis of this successful, profitable business model, Netmums.com generated a turnover of EUR 3.1 million in the fiscal year ending April 2011.