Bumble is a company founded in 2014 by Whitney Wolfe Herd, which owns several dating apps, for example: Bumble app, Badoo, and Bumble for Friends.
Founder Whitney is a former co-founder of Tinder, but she resigned from the company and filed a lawsuit against Tinder for sexual harassment.
Bumble was launched in December 2014 in Austin, Texas. It was a direct response to what Wolfe Herd saw as a flaw in dating apps. Bumble empowered women to make the first move, aiming to create a safer and more respectful environment.
In November 2019, Blackstone acquired Bumble’s then-parent company, which was known at the time as Magiclab. The purchase price was approximately $3 billion. Blackstone listed Bumble in February 2021. Blackstone still owns approximately 35% of Bumble’s shares.
Like other dating apps, Bumble’s revenue has been declining after COVID, but the company’s profitability has risen sharply since then. The company’s founder, Whitney Wolfe, returned as CEO in March of this year, and since then, the company has replaced its entire management team and will try to focus on the app’s quality and profitability, at the expense of user numbers. In other words, the company aims to attract more paying users to the app.
According to several market studies, the global online dating market is expected to grow by a double-digit percentage by 2030.
Over the past year, the company has made significant goodwill write-downs, so EPS is still negative, but free cash flow is strong. If the company can maintain this year’s revenue level and margins, I believe it is a good investment over a 3-year period. As Seth Klarman said: at some price, every company is a buy.
Once these write-downs are behind us, the valuation could look like the one below.
The tweet below has a similar message to the original post. .)
The tweeter says they bought more Bumble because they consider the stock clearly undervalued. In their opinion, a drop in price without a reasonable cause is a good buying opportunity, and they believe the company generates good cash flow relative to its low valuation.
$BMBL is priced ~0.6x sales ($600 Million) despite being on track to produce MORE than $200 Million in cash annually.
I noticed today while researching this that Bumble has not participated in a single investor conference this year, and none have been booked for the future. Additionally, Bumble’s website completely lacks an investor presentation. The last conference Bumble participated in was in December of last year. At the end of last year, there were still plenty of these. However, competitor Match Group has these conferences booked in their calendar. For example, Electronic Arts no longer participated in investor conferences during the current year, and its acquisition was announced in September.
The new CFO also has experience in acquisitions. Kevin D Cook previously served as Cloudera’s CFO, and he became Cloudera’s CFO immediately after the company’s privatization. He served as senior vice president of finance from August 2014 to September 2021, meaning he was part of the company’s management throughout its privatization process.
In addition, Bumble’s operating profit has reached a new record in the last quarter, meaning costs have been significantly cut.
With this information, one could speculate that Blackstone is divesting its investment and Bumble could be for sale, or the sales process is underway.
Nice, by the way, that you opened a thread for this - this company has completely passed me by, even though I’m a user of this app.
What do you think a potential Bumble sale process could mean from an investor’s perspective? Could a sale immediately/quickly boost the stock price, bring in a suitable strategic buyer, or signify a larger structural change in the company’s future? Maybe a bit of a silly question, but I asked it anyway.
I would guess that selling Bumble could mean privatizing the entire company if the buyer were another PE firm. For such a buyer, Bumble would be a financial cash cow.
Of course, if the buyer were, for example, Match Group, then it would be integrated into that corporate cluster. Match Group would gain significant synergies from the deal. Match Group has tried to buy Bumble several times in the past, but apparently, precise details of their offers have not been disclosed.
Bumble already has, in my opinion, the best person to develop the company involved, namely its old founder Whitney, who returned to the company’s helm this March. So, Whitney’s involvement alone could raise the purchase price.
As for the potential purchase price, one would assume it is above the so-called fair value mentioned in the first message of that thread.
Additionally, a potential sale might accelerate the “consolidation” of the entire dating app market, which could raise valuation levels for other players in the industry in the short term (?). Well, only Match Group comes to my mind, which includes Tinder (which I use) and other services.
Bumble released its Q3 earnings report on 5.11.2025, which met analysts’ forecasts well. In this context, it was announced that revenue would still decrease in the last quarter of the year.
At the same time, it was announced that the TRA agreement would be repurchased for $186 million, which was a $419 million liability on the balance sheet and would have affected future cash flows. In the same context, Blackstone and Whitney’s investment company exchanged the remaining voting shares for Class A shares.
If this were too good for shareholders, then on 7.11.2025, it was announced that the company has authorization to issue 30 million new shares for a key personnel compensation program.
In my opinion, the above events confirm that Bumble’s sale process is underway. I also asked AI for a summary of what factors indicate the company’s sale.
Bumble’s debt on the balance sheet (approx. 590m) matures in January 2027, but due to accounting regulations, it must be restructured 12 months before maturity, or it will become short-term on the balance sheet. So Bumble (Black Stone) has two options.
A) Restructure the loan, and the interest rate will likely be higher than the current 7.17%. This will increase the interest on the current loan, the stock price will fall, EPS will decrease, and Black Stone will lose money.
B) Black Stone makes a tender offer for Bumble itself, and as a private company, it is easier for BX to restructure the debt without public pressure, and it still gets to buy Bumble cheaply, even if it pays a premium.
The restructuring must be done this year due to the current risk.
If the offer is low, it will cause the current shareholders to dispute the offer.
The options market also anticipates that something is happening, as there is a visible spike in call options expiring on January 16. The call vs. put ratio is approximately 3:1, whereas the normal ratio for these is approximately 1:1.
Volatility curves show that even option sellers are pricing in a positive scenario.
Additionally, the stock’s volume is approximately 10-20% above normal volume after the earnings release, even though the price has been falling. Usually, volume dries up at some point after a bad earnings report.
The legal team lead for the termination of the TRA agreement was Joshua M Zachariah of Goodwin’s law. The man is known as an M&A arranger, especially for taking companies private. This, in turn, further strengthens the sale rumors.
In addition, all the other lawyers involved are also M&A arrangers.
