Friends Reunited 'may be sold'

The site's co-founder Stephen Pankhurst, in an interview with the Sunday Times newspaper, says the company is reviewing its options for the future.

It could mean the sale of the venture - which has around 8m members and is said to be worth around £25m ($40m).

" In the past 18 months we have had many parties interested and we are reviewing all our options "
Co-founder Stephen Pankhurst in the Sunday Times

A management buy-in is another option to protect the website's brand and allow it to expand.

Friends Reunited was set up in 2000 by Stephen Pankhurst and his business partner Jason Porter, after Stephen's wife Julie came up with the original idea.

A similar website, classmates.com, operates in the United States since the mid-1990s, but the founders of Friends Reunited say they came up with the idea without being aware of classmates.com's existence.

Several keen providers

It currently attracts around 15,000 to 20,000 new members every day, with an overall membership greater than the TUC.

Mr Pankhurst told the newspaper that advisers BDO Stoy Hayward had been appointed to review options for the business.

He said: "In the past 18 months we have had many parties interested and we are reviewing all our options with BDO.

"We are quite advanced in the process."

No one from Friends Reunited was available to comment on Sunday, but it is thought several major internet providers may be keen to take on the operation.

'Traditional company'

The site is run as uncommercially as possible and members are charged an annual fee of £5 to make contact with others who have registered.

Last month Mr Pankhurst, a computer programmer, said: "We've got no debt, we didn't borrow any money when we did it and we want to control it.

"We treat it like a traditional company."

He said overheads were kept small, with a staff of just 10 family and friends members.

The website has also been looking at expanding overseas and adopting new ventures such as allowing visitors to create family trees online.