Parship Price
The Parship Group is a leading provider of online matchmaking services. The well-known international brands Parship, ElitePartner and eharmony belong to the group. Parship is a compatibility-based online dating platform for 100,000 users from across Europe. This site satisfies the needs of many single people because it is created for serious dating. This site makes the search not only fun but also very fast with special features.
Owners of the EHarmony online dating service have agreed to buy New Hope-based Meet Group, its smartphone dating apps, and video and advertising software, for $500 million, or $6.30 a share.
Meet Group, which owns the MeetMe, Lovoo, Skout, Tagged and Growlr apps, among others, will become a U.S.-based arm of Munich, Germany-based NuCom’s Parship Group, a “matchmaking platform” that owns the EHarmony, Parship and Elite Partner dating apps, to form “a global leader in the online dating and social entertainment sector,” the companies said in a statement.
NuCom is a joint venture owned by German entertainment company ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE — which owns TV stations and reality-video shows in central Europe — and New York-based private-equity investor General Atlantic.
'This deal is all about growth,” said Meet Group chief executive and cofounder Geoff Cook. Instead of cutting jobs, “we are continuing to hire.'
The company employs 337 worldwide, including about 200 at its New Hope and Philadelphia offices. Cook will stay on to run the group in coordination with Parship.
Together they have apps companion-seekers can use from their smartphones “if you’re looking for someone for the weekend, or a conversation partner, or your spouse,” Cook added. “We always believed in having a portfolio.”
The sale price is “a 25% premium” to Meet Group’s recent share value, double its expected 2020 sales, and ten times its expected earnings (not counting financial costs) -- a rich price, by recent media tech deal standards, noted Austin Moldow, analyst at Cannacord Genuity Capital Markets in New York.
The deal “will deliver certain and immediate value to our shareholders,” Meet Group chairman Spencer Rhodes said in a statement.
Indeed, the sale price is the most that the stock has been worth since the company went public after a 2011 merger with the Latin America-focused social-media network QuePasa — except for the last hour of trading on Wednesday afternoon, when the price spiked more than $1 to close at $6.82 a share.
That was after Reuters, citing unidentified sources, reported that the deal was imminent at a price of “more than $500 million.” Buyers who bought at the top in the ensuing rush of trades face a loss of up to 8 percent if the deal goes through as planned, pending Meet Group shareholder approval and U.S. and German regulatory OKs.
Cook cofounded the company originally known as MyYearbook in 2003, using the digital student guide his siblings Catherine and David set up to meet fellow students at Montgomery Township High School in Somerset County, New Jersey.
He said that the private-equity backers can better finance expansion than Meet Group could on its own.
Cook owns two million shares, according to the company’s most recent shareholder proxy statement, worth over $12 million at the sale price. Catherine heads the company’s U.S. marketing, and David works on a contract basis.
Cook wouldn’t comment on whether large investors had pressured him to sell, but noted that NuCom approached him about combining.
Adding Meet Group “will significantly advance our ambition to create one of the leading global players in online dating and interactive live video,” said Max Conze, chief executive at ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE. The combined companies will enjoy higher market share in the German live-video smartphone apps sector, he said in a statement.
“We continue to consolidate our position in the online-dating market” by adding Meet Group’s “social entertainment” to the EHarmony dating service and other brands, said Tim Schiffers, chief executive of the Parship Group. 'I am looking forward to working with our new colleagues to solidify our international footprint.”
Philadelphia-based Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP and the Bank of America advised Meet Group in the sale.
Meet Group’s Lovoo, Skout, Tagged and Growlr apps were acquired since early investments by backers including Philadelphia-based First Round Capital.
The MeetMe app is designed to help users 'meet new people,” Lovoo targets Western Europe, Tagged is focused on African Americans, and Growlr is focused on gay people.
First Round cofounder Josh Kopelman is chairman of the board of The Inquirer. A longtime First Round partner, Chris Fralic, is a Meet Group director.
The company added Flash-based games and the Lunch Money virtual currency in 2008 and the Meebo instant-messaging system in 2009. It bought Skout in 2016, and added If(we) and the German dating app Lovoo in 2017.
Meet Group has satellite offices in San Francisco, and in Dresden and Berlin, Germany.
Those who want to find new life partners through Parship could be confronted with high costs as soon as they change their mind and only use the service for a short time. The question of costs when revoking membership has long been a point of contention between consumer protection organisations and Parship. According to the matchmaking company, a large part of the membership fee should be due as soon as new customers have had a few chats with singles and cost several hundred euros as 'value replacement'. Recently, the European Court of Justice ruled in favour of a customer. Hundreds of similar cases are now being handled in a similar way.
Background - what is parship?
The dating platform parship is the market leader in German-speaking countries and has over a quarter of a million customers. Parship claims to have the highest success rate in Austria and to have initiated every 15th marriage in Austria. The placement rate for paying premium members is 38%, and 67% of premium members at least manage to get a date with other users.
Parship has been around since 2000 and after its founding in Hamburg, the service has expanded to 13 other European countries as well as Mexico. In the German-speaking countries, the parent company PE Digital still generates its largest turnover and, in addition to Parship, also operates the dating agency Elitepartner with a focus on an academic clientele. PE Digital's majority shareholding is in turn held by the media holding company ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE, which also operates most of the private TV channels in Austria and has been re-bundling the dating business since September 2020.
Cost barrier and function
How Much Does Parship Cost
The fundamental difference between Parship's free and paid services is the restriction of basic functions. The free offer includes an automated evaluation of a questionnaire filled out during new registrations and the possibility to view the profiles of other members. However, no photos are visible and free text input to actively write to other members is not possible. In order to contact other members directly or to read their messages, a paid premium membership must be taken out. Parship is not cheap, the monthly membership fee currently costs about 25 €uros, after a 6-month membership it is automatically renewed for another 12 months.
We have reported several times that the automatic renewal at Parship has repeatedly led to problems and complaints, read more about it here.
The questionnaire mentioned was designed by psychology professor Hugo Schmale. The user inputs are psychologically evaluated, based on behavioural theory and psychoanalytical approaches. An algorithm then compares these inputs to suggest users to each other. The key of the calculation values the personality traits of customers at about 60 %, common interests as well as opinions and preferences at about 20 % each in the weighting of partner suggestions.
Parship Group Share Price
Current ruling of the ECJ against Parship
It was precisely the charging of this initial evaluation of the questionnaire as well as the delivery of a 'portrait of the partnership personality' so described in Parship's updated GTCs that was the bone of contention in the last lawsuit (Case C-641/19), which has now been decided in favour of a Parship subscriber by the European Court of Justice.
What is important about this court decision is that in the case of a revocation received within 14 days by a new customer, Parship may only claim its services provided so far on a pro rata temporis basis and no longer the majority for an annual subscription.
In the specific case, the plaintiff had concluded a premium annual membership for €523.95 in November 2018. Only after four days and within the legally prescribed cancellation period, she declared her withdrawal from the contract. Parship charged her a whopping €392.96 as compensation for lost value.
Parship's position was that the new customer had expressly agreed to receive initial services from the beginning, which also corresponded to the largest service provided:
After a thirty-minute personality test, new members immediately receive automated partner suggestions in the same federal state. Premium members receive a 50-page personality assessment, which in turn basic members can buy as a partial service for a fee.
However, the ECJ ruled that in the case of revocation, only a proportionate amount is to be offset. In the case in question, the woman who had cancelled after 4 days was charged 5.74 euros, which corresponded to four times the daily value (365th of the annual price). The court further stated: Only if a contract expressly provides for a separate price for services at the beginning of the term is this due. In the contract in question, however, no separate price for any individual service had been noted.
Tip: For this reason, when concluding contracts in the future, be sure to pay attention to what is written in the small print of your contract! Parship and Elitepartner will adapt their GTCs accordingly and presumably obtain your consent separately, which would fulfil the requirement of separate price information at the beginning of the term. This is currently mentioned under point 11.3 in the GTCs of Parship!
The case is now back at the Hamburg District Court, where the interpretation of EU consumer rights is being implemented in concrete terms after confirmation by the ECJ. According to the Hamburg District Court, several hundred parallel proceedings are already underway and several individual cases have already been decided in favour of consumers in similar situations.
I have paid too much - what can I claim?
If you have taken out a Premium Membership with Parship before 8 October 2020 and have withdrawn from the contract within 14 days and have paid the full value replacement, you should now request Parship to refund the excess value replacement and set a deadline of 2 weeks for the requested repayment.
Calculate the amount of money you can claim back:
- You divide the amount paid by this number of days and get the daily price.
- You multiply the number of days since the conclusion of your contract up to and including the day of your cancellation by the daily price and receive the so-called compensation for lost value to which Parship is entitled according to the court.
- Subtract the compensation for lost value from the amount paid in. You enter this difference, which you have paid too much according to the court, in the sample letter and claim it back from Parship/Elitepartner.
If Parship does not respond, you can sue for a refund of the amount minus the daily rate with very good chances of success. The limitation period here is three years. The colleagues of Stiftung Warentest maintain a list of law firms that are specialised and successful against Parship.
Parship Prijs
Related Links
T&Cs of Parship
https://www.parship.at/termsandconditions/
List by 'Stiftung Warentest' - Law firms experienced in Parship cases
https://www.test.de/Singleboerse-So-wehren-Sie-sich-gegen-Parship-und-ElitepartnerSingleboerse-So-wehren-Sie-sich-gegen…
Legal assessment of the verdict on verbraucherrecht.at (DE)
https://www.verbraucherrecht.at/cms/index.php?id=49&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=4686&cHash=a3bf91783ad2505a43d481fd9010694e