PE firm Grant Great Hill Partners, which might be best known for buying (and then selling) IGN, wants to take online dating company Spark Networks private. Great Hill, which bought a minority stake in Spark Networks in late 2005 and now owns about a quarter of the company’s stock, is offering to buy the shares it does not own in a deal that would value the company at roughly $64 million.
In a letter to Spark Networks’ board, the PE firm writes that “as a private company, the company will have the ability both to focus exclusively on the long-term growth of its business without regard to short-term profitability and to eliminate taxing public company related expenses and management distractions.” (It notes that the company’s operational performance “has lagged the broader online dating industry, with significant declines in subscribers and average revenue per user.”)
In a statement of its own, Spark Networks says it has formed a special committee of its independent directors to review the proposal and “any other potential business combination.”
It’s possible that Spark Networks — which owns JDate among other targeted dating sites — could find an alternate suitor, considering that the slumping online dating sector has been going through some consolidation. Just last week, Match.com said it would buy rival Singlesnet. Two years ago — when its stock was valued at $131 million — Spark Networks was said to be shopping itself to potential suitors including Match.com parent IAC (NSDQ: IACI), MySpace (NYSE: NWS), eHarmony and Yahoo.

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