Oakley reaps 3.6x return on Parship partial exit

The transaction values the business at €300m, with a return of 3.6x and a 150% IRR for Oakley. Its equity investment generated a 2.3x cash return, with the interest in Parship valued at €67m, including expected net cash returns of €44m. Oakley's Fund II will receive gross proceeds of €129m. The GP also provided £5.2m of debt to Parship, which will be repaid as part of the transaction.

Oakley and the management will retain a combined stake of just less than 50%. During the GP's ownership, the business acquired competitor Elite Partner.

Oakley and ProSiebenSat.1 have also been jointly invested in price comparison platform Verivox since June 2015. As with Parship, the GP sold a majority stake to the trade buyer.

Previous funding
Oakley acquired Parship in April 2015 from Holtzbrinck Digital.

Company
Parship and ElitePartner (Parship Elite) is a group of two online dating platforms operating across Europe. Founded in 2001 and based in Hamburg, the business has 230 employees.

People
Oakley Capital – Peter Dubens (director); Rebecca Gibson (partner).
ProSiebenSat.1 – Christian Wegner (member of executive board).

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• Topics
• Exits
• DACH
• Technology
• Partial sale
• Germany
• Oakley Capital