Ancestry.com files for IPO

Popular genealogy site Ancestry.com is going public, hoping to raise around $75 million, according to its SEC filing for an initial public offering submitted Monday.

As a genealogy site, Ancestry.com enables people to research their family history to find out who their ancestors were and how their family tree blossomed. The company started life in 1983 as a book publisher and then jumped online in 1997.

Ancestry.com is run by a firm previously known as The Generations Network, which changed its own name in early July to Ancestry.com to capitalize on the brand name. The majority of the company is owned by Spectrum Equity Investors, a communications business that paid around $300 million in 2007 for a 67 percent stake. Underwriters for the IPO are Morgan Stanley and Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

With almost 1 million customers, Ancestry.com relies on paying subscribers rather than advertising to bring in the cash.

Profits have risen steadily over the past couple of years. For the first six months of 2009, Ancestry.com took in earnings of $8.18 million on sales of $99.9 million, according to its SEC filing. Those results compare with earnings of $1.24 million on sales of $87.4 million for the first six months of 2008.

Ancestry.com's foray into the public arena comes at a time when funding from venture capitalists to start-ups and IPOs is down. The company is hoping its past growth and success will help it buck the trend.

Clarification, Wednesday 5:07 a.m. PDT: The headline on this story has been changed from the original to avoid confusion.

bad title, before reading the article I though that they were releasing their files to the public.

[TheTechKid]

My thought exactly.

[Carla_page]

free to the public????? i don,t think so!!!!! you have to pay an ungodly amount to join ancestry.com to see documents and files about your family,it is illegal for them to make you join up to have access to family files and cocuments.they are violating the freedom of information act and violating the constitution.all genealogical records no matter what they are,are open to inspection and open to being copied,this includes bound deed books.all genealogical records are considered open records.i cannot afford what they want to join ancestry.com,and i won,t pay to have access to my families records.

[fitzydog]

***?? Change the name on this!!

jerk......

[dpeters11]

I thought the exact same thing myself. Thought it was too good to be true. Yep, it is.

[mista77]

*sigh* - How about ancestry.com to go public? Not their files!

[inachu1]

Need to make sure insurance companies do not use the website to consider who gets insured or how to raise rates by confirming names via ancestry.com and other historical medical records.

If rates are raised or medical desicions are made from historical documents without the patients knowledge that would be used against the clients permission or a third party tool that brings all data together to work against a patient then there will need to be a pending lawsuit to prevent unlawful data collection.

[Commander_Spock]

Re: "Need to make sure insurance companies do not use the website to consider who gets insured or how to raise rates by confirming names via ancestry.com and other historical medical records. ..."

On the other hand how about if you are able to trace your royal lineage and you have billions of dollars awaiting you from an African Kingdom!!!

This would be soooooooooo........... Cool!

[kieranmullen]

REQUEST FOR URGENT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP

WE ARE TOP OFFICIAL OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT CONTRACT REVIEW PANEL WHO ARE INTERESTED IN IMPORATION OF GOODS INTO OUR COUNTRY WITH FUNDS WHICH ARE PRESENTLY TRAPPED IN NIGERIA. IN ORDER TO COMMENCE THIS BUSINESS WE SOLICIT YOUR ASSISTANCE TO ENABLE US TRANSFER INTO YOUR ACCOUNT THE SAID TRAPPED FUNDS.

................

YOURS FAITHFULLY,

DR CLEMENT OKON

[TxBoy65]

As a member of Ancestry, the headline had me reading this article quickly. I wondered what records they were releasing. If Mr. Whitney wanted his article read, he choose the correct title - even if it gave the wrong impession.

[MagiMamoru]

Headline Misleading, Shame on CNet

[lancewhitney]

Sorry for the confusion. My original title was Ancestry.com files IPO to go public, but it was shortened.

[kieranmullen]

Is this company relevant? Much like classmates.com are they relevant compared to facebook.com or whatever will come out to be free in the future?

[martalli]

This company is completely relevant. They have an enormous amount of information available for genealogy research. They have a tremendous amount of information scanned in, and it is very searchable. Maybe this information will be free in the far future, but the cost is relatively low compared to the cost of travel and having other people do lookups for pay in distant county courthouses, etc.

[Carla_page]

the cost low????? i don,t think so!!!!!!!

[skooldays]

According to http://blog.ancestrycom.co.uk/2009/11/ancestrycom-worth-658-million.html its going to be worth 658!