Sometimes our European holidays get in the way of knowing what is going on; while I was sun bathing, without a Blackberry, no online connection but with long luncheons, lots of wine and a great swimming pool, other people were selling their company. Such as the founders of Netmums. They sold their 11-year old company.

The No. 1 publisher of women's websites worldwide, aufeminin.com, has acquired 100 percent of Netmums.com, the leading British parental website of founders Siobhan Freegard, Cathy Court and Sarah Russell. While aufeminin.com is already present in the UK with sofeminine.co.uk, the acquisition reinforces its position as the leading website for women.

Established by three founders in 2000, London-based Netmums.com is a parental website “designed for mums by mums”, its main features being editorial content, discussion forums and chats. The Netmums.com website operates on the basis of contributions from its users, and has a UK audience of 0.7 million unique users (7 million page impressions)¹, showing a growth of 36 percent compared to the previous year.

On the basis of this successful, profitable business model, Netmums.com generated in the fiscal year ending April 2011 a turnover of EUR 3.1m.

aufeminin.com has been present in the UK since 2005 with sofeminine.co.uk, which recorded 0.6 million unique visitors¹. The acquisition of Netmums.com makes the aufeminin.com group the market leader and gives it an added competitive edge for advertising clients in realizing Pan-European campaigns.

The current management team around the founders Siobhan Freegard, Cathy Court and Sarah Russell, stays on board and will actively develop the future of the company. Netmums.com will be consolidated in the group’s accounts as of August 2011.