FriendFinder IPO: Invest $460 Million, Get A $95,000 Car
I only had enough time to assess the big picture when I wrote about the FriendFinder Network IPO earlier this week: Money-losing porn/social network company drowning in debt, needs public investors to bail it out.
But the FriendFinder prospectus may turn out to have multiple Christmas gifts for anyone who works their way through it. For instance, Nick Wingfield, my corporate cousin at the Wall Street Journal, dug up this gem under "related party transactions":
In another interesting tidbit, the company says [predecessor company] Various purchased an automobile from the founder of Various for $125,000 on October 27, 2006 (the founder in question appears to be Andrew Conru.) The company doesn’t say what kind of car it is or why it bought it, but it doesn’t appear to have gotten a very good deal. The filing says the vehicle is currently “being held for sale and in 2006 was written down to its estimated net realizable value of $95,000.” A FriendFinder spokesman didn’t immediately return a call for comment.
