Canadian adultery website AshleyMadison eyes London IPO
The Canadian infidelity website known as AshleyMadison started out as a niche platform that was advertised during The Jerry Springer Show but today claims 1.2 million users in Britain alone and is considered to be the second largest dating site in the world behind match.com.
Avid Life Media, the parent company that owns AshleyMadison and other sites including cougarlife.com, tried floating in Toronto five years ago, only to be greeted to a lack of appetite among North American investors, possibly because the website promotes adultery.
Now the website, whose strap line is "Live is short. Have an affair", plans to float on the London Stock Exchange by the end of 2015, raising up to $200 million in the process and giving it a valuation as high as $1 billion.
"Europeans have a more laissez-faire attitude toward infidelity," said Christoph Kraemer, head of international relations for AshleyMadison. "Investors here will look past that and at the numbers."
He added that the UK is the largest market in Europe for the website.
Techworld contacted London Stock Exchange about the possible IPO but the exchange is yet to respond.