Pamplona Capital Management has partnered with the management team of Legacy.com and acquired a majority interest in the company.
Legacy.com is the global leader in online obituaries, with over 43 million visitors each month, and is ranked by Quantcast as a Top 40 domain in the United States. Through its Legacy.com and Tributes.com brands, the company provides support and obituary-related services to more than 1,500 newspapers (including The New York Times, Boston Globe, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and Manchester Evening News) and 3,500 funeral homes in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, UK, and Europe. Legacy.com was founded in 1998 by CEO Stopher Bartol and is headquartered in the Chicago suburb of Evanston, IL (www.legacy.com).
This investment by Pamplona follows more than a decade of double-digit growth at Legacy.com, driven by a surging e-commerce business, a top 40 internet web domain, and an expanding US and global presence. Already the worldwide leader in the online digital memorialization space, the company intends to continue investing in product innovation and further expand its partner network.
“Legacy.com has built an exciting business that is well positioned for continued geographic expansion and ongoing audience growth, given behavioral and demographic shifts across the globe,” said Hiren Mankodi, a Partner at Pamplona. “The company’s singular focus on the growth of this category has resulted in winning the long-term trust of some the largest news media companies and funeral home partners. Legacy.com provides daily management and growth for obituary-related revenue to its partners with unmatched know-how in the space, consistently expanding reach, engagement, and value, resulting in superior monetization with award-winning customer service. We’re thrilled to partner with the talented management team at Legacy.com and to provide the investment to drive the next level of growth for this business.”
Pamplona makes direct private equity, fund of hedge funds, and single manager hedge fund investments. The firm manages over $10 billion in assets across a number of funds for a variety of clients including public pension funds, international wealth managers, multinational corporations, family offices, and funds of hedge funds. Pamplona was founded in 2005 and is based in London and New York (www.pamplonafunds.com).
The buy of Legacy.com is Pamplona’s fourth investment made by Pamplona TMT I, LP, its $1 billion, US-based private equity fund focused on growth equity and control investments in the technology, media, and telecommunications sectors. This fund had a final close in May 2016. The three other portfolio investments include Dyn, a provider of internet performance management services (acquired by Oracle in January 2017); Logicworks, a provider of cloud automation and managed services; and Nova Sciences, a platform company formed to pursue acquisitions of industrial instrumentation companies.
© 2017 Private Equity Professional | March 24, 2017
