French radio station Skyrock is looking to sell off its highly successful online operation, according to French magazine Challenge. The pop music station was founded by Pierre Bellanger and added the Skyblog platform, giving youngsters free online journals, in 2002. It has since risen to become France’s eighth most popular site (October comScore (NSDQ: SCOR) figures) and one of Europe’s biggest social media platforms, with over 12 million members – real competition to the localisation ambitions of MySpace and Facebook. That online popularity could now offer leverage – Challenge reports Skyrock’s holding company Orbus (80 percent owned by Axa’s private equity arm, 20 percent by Bellanger) now wants to sell.
The theory goes that Axa would exit and the funds would give Bellanger the clout to repurchase the radio station he founded outright. Challenge says the valuation is a mighty 300 million euros (£213 million). Bellanger in September told French site YouVoxTech that Skyblog needed to globalise and, indeed, it is now available in English, German, Spanish and Dutch. A sale may be a surprise, however – only recently, the “Skyblog” identity the blog outfit had operated separately from its parent station was folded under the “Skyrock” moniker, so the site is rather wedded to the station that bears its name. Monsieur Bellanger told paidContent:UK Skyrock does not comment on speculation.