Elliott’s attention should lift Match

Article Excerpt

MATCH GROUP INC. $36 is a hold. This company (Nasdaq symbol MTCH; Consumer Sector; Shares outstanding: 268.9 million; Market cap: $9.7 billion; No dividend paid; Takeover Target Rating: Medium; www.mtch.com) owns dating websites Tinder, Match, Hinge and OK-Cupid. It has 15.2 million paying subscribers (with about half outside North America). IAC Inc. (Nasdaq symbol IAC) originally sold roughly 20% of its stake in Match Group to the public in 2015. On June 30, 2020, it handed out its remaining shares to its shareholders, who received 2.1584 Match Group shares for each share they held. The stock shot up to $182 in October 2021, but is now down 80%. That’s because of a drop in the number of paying customers due to price increases, as well as increasing competition from other dating apps. Activist Elliott Management recently disclosed that it now owns $1 billion of Match’s stock. It has not yet made any demands, but its involvement should help the company boost profitability and pay down its long-term…