Report: Ancestry.com Acquired By Investor Group, Permira, For $1.6 Billion

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Genealogy website Ancestry.com Inc. ACOM -1.68% has agreed to be acquired by an investor group led by European private-equity firm Permira for about $1.6 billion, or $32 a share, according to people familiar with the deal.

The buyout is a bet that family-history research is more than a niche market and that the subscriber base can swell with technological innovations, deeper archives and a wider international audience. People familiar with the buyers' plans said that expansion in western Europe is a goal. Report: Ancestry.com Acquired By Investor Group, Permira, For $1.6 Billion [online.wsj.com]

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interesting ...

but i'm not sure there is going to be a big market in western europe, for a start most europeans are not as obsessed with ancestry like north americans (AFAIK)

also on a lesser scale i think a lot of the ancestry business is fuelled by the church of LDS, who don't have a strong presence in europe either.