Investor realignment for Ancestry

News reports indicate that a potential new investors in Ancestry.com are causing some changes in the investor line up. Sehttp://fortune.com/2016/04/01/silver-lake-buys-into-ancestry-com-at-2-6-billion-valuation/e Fortune article, "Silver Lake Buys Into Ancestry.com at $2.6 Billion Valuation." See also the BloombergTechnology article, "GIC and Silver Lake Invest in U.S. Genealogy Company Ancestry."

Ancestry is presently valued at $2.6 billion. The Bloomberg article states.

GIC Pte, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, and technology investor Silver Lake Management LLC will buy into Ancestry.com LLC., the U.S. genealogy company said.
The investment values Provo Utah-based Ancestry at about $2.6 billion, it said in a press release Friday. Current investor GIC and Silver Lake will hold equal minority ownership positions, according to the statement, which didn’t provide the size of their stakes.

The current investor/owners of the company are described as follows:

Other investors including Permira Holdings Ltd., Spectrum Equity Investors LP, Ancestry’s President and Chief Executive Officer Tim Sullivan and Chief Financial and Chief Operating Officer Howard Hochhauser will remain as meaningful equity holders, Ancestry said in the statement.

The Salt Lake Tribune has an article entitled, "Investors pump $2.6 billion into Ancestry.com" but The Salt Lake Tribune headline writers apparently have not been reading the other news sources or vice versa because the other news articles are saying that amount of the investment has not been disclosed and the $2.6 billion figure is the value of Ancestry.com not the investment. The Salt Lake Tribune adds a statement by Silver Lake's managing partner.

Mike Bingle, Silver Lake's managing partner, said Ancestry.com's subscription businesses are "well positioned to deliver further attractive and profitable growth" because they continue to "define and pioneer the market for self-discovery." 

"Ancestry's rapidly expanding consumer DNA testing services has powerful network effects and widespread consumer appeal," he added. 

GIC Managing Director Eric Wilmes said his company's experience with Ancestry.comhas been positive over the past three years. He expects it to improve with Silver Lake and Permira rounding out a team that will "support Ancestry's growth and create value together."

I am guessing that Ancestry.com's success with its DNA operations has attracted these new investors. Ancestry.com had been rumored to up for sale since last year, 2015.

I would further guess that we will see a shift away from the pure "database" functions of the program to one more aligned with the promotion of DNA and Health services as I have written not too long ago. These news stories confirm somethings I had been hearing outside of the normal news channels but could not write about.