Match Group holder Starboard Value sends letter to CEO/board on opportunity

Starboard Value which holds approximately 6.6% of the outstanding common shares of Match Group announced it sent a letter to the company’s CEO & CFO, and Board of Directors regarding actionable opportunities for enhancing shareholder value. …the letter lays out Starboard’s view that Match should explore a sale in the event the company’s leadership is unable to execute on the prescribed value-enhancing initiatives…The letter said in part: “As you know, Starboard Value is a large shareholder of Match Group… As disclosed in ourSchedule 13D filing… Match is a growing, high-quality business in a secularly growing industry and is deeply undervalued…. We believe Match has an opportunity to improve revenue growth from its expected 2024 growth rate of approximately 6%. In recent quarters, Match’s revenue growth has been hindered by user and payer declines at Tinder, Match’s largest app. We believe Tinder’s issues are driven, in large part, by a lack of innovation at the product level after years of viral growth. We believe these and other issues at Tinder are addressable and resolving them will drive improved results…We believe Match can generate $5.50 or more of free cash flow per share in 2026. As shown below, Match is trading at less than 6.0x pro forma free cash flow, representing a greater than 60% discount to the companies shown below, despite having a similar growth profile. “