Tech and media conglomerate IAC said Wednesday it is considering spinning off all of its shares of Match and real estate tech firm ANGI Homeservices.
IAC (IAC) currently owns controlling stakes in Match (MTCH), which owns Tinder, and ANGI Homeservices (ANGI), the parent of Angie’s List, Handy and HomeAdvisor.
Match reported strong results after the closing bell Tuesday, news that sent Match and IAC shares soaring Wednesday. IAC also reported sales and profits that topped forecasts on Wednesday. Both stocks have surged this year.
ANGI Homeservices, which reported results as well on Wednesday, has underperformed expectations. The stock is down more than 20% this year, despite posting solid sales growth.
IAC CEO Joey Levin said in a letter to shareholders that no final decision has been made as of yet regarding spinoffs of Match and ANGI Homeservices.
“We don’t yet know where that process will lead — there’s lots of work to be done and details to consider — and we may ultimately choose to spin off both, one or neither,” Levin said, adding that the company still sees strong opportunities to grow the ANGI business and expand Match internationally.
But IAC’s potential sale of its remaining shares of both Match and ANGI Homeservices should come as no surprise, even though Match is thriving and ANGI shares have been lagging.
IAC, whose chairman is media mogul Barry Diller, has a history of incubating businesses such as Expedia (EXPE), HSN and Ticketmaster before spinning them out into separately traded independent businesses. Ticketmaster is now part of Live Nation (LYV), and HSN merged with home shopping rival QVC to form Qurate (QRTEA).
Levin noted this history in his shareholder letter.
“We’ve never been empire builders — we’ve always preferred to be the anti-conglomerate,” he said.
If IAC winds up selling off its stakes in Match and ANGI, IAC will be left with three other rapidly growing businesses to focus on: video sharing and analytics tools comapny Vimeo, digital media firm Dotdash (the former About.com) and mobile app developer Mosaic Group, which owns iTranslate and Daily Burn.
IAC also recently bought a $250 million stake in car-sharing company Turo. IAC is also the owner of Ask.com and other reference websites, as well as The Daily Beast news and opinion site.
