On the planet of web enterprise, there are a number of offers which can be whispered about with a type of reverent awe: Fb shopping for Instagram for $1 billion. Microsoft grabbing Minecraft for $2.5 billion. Google snapping up YouTube for $1.65 billion.
If the rumors are true, one other one could also be about to affix that pantheon.
In line with sources who spoke to Reuters, Leonid Radvinsky, the billionaire proprietor of OnlyFans, is in superior talks to promote the grownup content material platform to a personal investor group led by Forest Highway for $8 billion. The deal may very well be finalized inside weeks, although sources warning it is not but assured.
That $8 billion quantity is staggering. However it would possibly really be low.
OnlyFans generated $6.6 billion in gross income in 2023, with $649 million in internet revenue, all from a enterprise that has no bodily stock, no storefronts, and no reliance on mainstream distribution channels. It pays out 80% of earnings on to creators, and retains 20% for itself, making it one of many cleanest, highest-margin platforms in web historical past.
And Radvinsky? He owns 100% of it.
A Billionaire within the Shadows
When you’ve by no means heard of Leonid Radvinsky, that is by design. Regardless of proudly owning one of the worthwhile and controversial platforms on the internet, Radvinsky has stored a very low profile. His LinkedIn web page would not point out OnlyFans. His solely work expertise is “President” of Leo.com.
He hardly ever offers interviews. He is just about absent from social media. There’s barely a photograph of him on-line.
It was very powerful to select a photograph to make use of on this article. The man you see within the photograph above shouldn’t be Leonid. It is a man named Charlie Sims who attended a “tea occasion” hosted by OnlyFans in February 2022. The ladies (Frankie Sims, Demi Sims, Chloe Sims, and Georgia Shults), attending with Charlie, could or is probably not OnlyFans creators. If they’re, I would not be shocked in the event that they every make like $20 million a yr.
Leonid Radvinsky acquired 75% of OnlyFans in 2018 from the platform’s unique founders, brothers Tim and Thomas Stokely. On the time, OnlyFans was a scrappy, adult-adjacent startup making a number of million {dollars} a yr. Radvinsky noticed the potential and wager massive.
At present, Radvinsky now operates OnlyFans via a UK-based holding firm referred to as Fenix Worldwide Ltd., and during the last 4 years alone, he is quietly paid himself $1.6 billion in dividends.
We all know fairly a bit about OnlyFans’ financials as a result of, as a UK-based firm, Fenix is required to launch annual statements. These statements confirmed the next dividends paid to Radvinsky:
$284 million in 2021 $338 million in 2022 $472 million in 2023
The corporate has but to launch its 2024 P&L, however for example he paid himself $500 million. That might deliver his four-year whole to simply underneath $1.6 billion.
For a person with no traders, no board, and no public scrutiny, that is a degree of private wealth extraction just about unparalleled.
A Pandemic Windfall
OnlyFans exploded throughout the early months of the COVID pandemic as each creators and followers flocked to the platform. As we see from the monetary assertion beneath, in 2019, the location earned $304 million. By 2023, that quantity had ballooned to $6.6 billion.
2019: $304 million 2020: $2.2 billion 2021: $4.8 billion 2022: $5.5 billion 2023: $6.6 billion
That development has drawn suitors, nevertheless it’s additionally made OnlyFans poisonous for a lot of mainstream establishments. Its ties to pornography, allegations of non-consensual content material, and the ever-present specter of intercourse trafficking have scared off massive banks, public firms, and conventional personal fairness. Apple nonetheless refuses to host the app within the App Retailer.
Which raises the query: who would purchase it?
Forest Highway’s Second Strive
Forest Highway, the funding group reportedly main the $8 billion bid, isn’t any stranger to the corporate. A few of its executives have been beforehand concerned in a 2022 SPAC effort to take OnlyFans public. That deal by no means materialized, however the group seems to be again—and this time with an easier plan: purchase it outright.
Forest Highway has beforehand backed media and digital ventures and bought a majority stake in ACF Funding Financial institution in 2024 to develop its advisory attain. Shopping for OnlyFans would mark a daring—and dangerous—transfer into the grownup creator financial system.
To Promote or To not Promote
However this is the factor: Leonid Radvinsky is underneath no strain to promote.
He controls a enterprise that throws off $500 million in money every year, with no indicators of slowing down. With that type of annual dividend stream, a sale for $8 billion is perhaps much less attractive than merely holding and amassing.
Think about the next: If Leonid bought for $8 billion, that is a a number of of 12X earnings (the corporate’s earnings of $649 million, not his $500 million dividend). That is lower than half the a number of Meta trades at (~23x), nicely beneath Microsoft’s (~33x), and dramatically decrease than the 50x income a number of Adobe agreed to pay for Figma, an organization that wasn’t even worthwhile.
Even when Leonid merely held on to the enterprise for an additional 10 years, assuming efficiency held, he would theoretically pay himself one other $5 billion in dividends with out having to promote!
And when you assume holding on to an online enterprise could be dumb, think about Craigslist founder Craig Newmark. He nonetheless earns $300 million per yr from a web site that has not modified in 25 years.
So why promote?
If Radvinsky actually is procuring OnlyFans, it is perhaps much less in regards to the cash and extra in regards to the legal responsibility. Investigations, lawsuits, and rising regulatory consideration could finally change into an excessive amount of to handle, even for a billionaire within the shadows.
Plus, $8 billion is a gigantic sum of money, particularly once you’re the only proprietor. As a result of Leonid Radvinsky is a Florida resident, his solely tax legal responsibility could be federal long-term capital beneficial properties. After paying the 20 p.c capital beneficial properties tax and the three.8 p.c internet funding earnings tax, his whole tax invoice would come to roughly $1.9 billion. Which means if he sells, he walks away with roughly $6.1 billion in money, after taxes.
Exhausting to argue with that.
And he’ll do it with out ever displaying his face.