Wednesday, October 15, 2014

IMImobile acquires mobile messaging platform TextLocal for around £13.15M

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IMImobile TextLocal


AIM-listed IMImobile has acquired UK-based mobile marketing & communications company TextLocal for approximately £13.15 million. This includes £10 million in cash and around £1 million worth of IMImobile shares (707,564 shares at a price of 141.33p per share).


There is also provision for an additional deferred consideration of a maximum £2.15 million split over two years, that will be shared amongst TextLocal’s founders and senior management.


TextLocal provides text messaging services and bulk SMS marketing solutions targeted at small and medium sized businesses. The company claims that these solutions have been used by more than 100,000 businesses since its inception on 2005. Besides text messaging, it also allows businesses to create customized mobile tickets, vouchers & loyalty cards, mobile forms & surveys and mobile webpages among others.


Post acquisition, IMImobile will be integrating TextLocal’s messenger platform to its core infrastructure in order to strengthen its mobile engagement product suite.


IMImobile CEO Jay Patel mentions that this acquisition will give them access to a substantial new client base comprising small and medium sized businesses and provides them opportunities to cross-sell their offerings to these businesses.


Rolling out TextLocal to new markets: Patel added that they also plan to make use of its global distribution and operator relationships to introduce TextLocal’s offering into new international markets. The company plans to integrate this platform over the next six months and it expect this acquisition to improve the group’s earnings from second half of the current financial year (ending 31 March 2015).


TextLocal revenues: TextLocal reported total revenues of £7 million and a profit after tax of £1 million for the year ending 30 November 2013. IMImobile mentions that TextLocal is debt free and at the date of acquisition has approximately £1.3 million of net current assets.


IMImobile acquisitions


IMImobile had entered the UK market by acquiring the UK based mobile services company WIN PLC in August 2010. Post acquisition, WIN PLC was delisted from the London Stock Exchange. This acquisition also helped IMImobile to improve profitability and reduce costs by moving some of services to its Hyderabad-based Network Operations Centre and cross-selling some of its existing services to WIN PLC clients.


The company had also acquired UK-based digital agency Skinkers in September 2011, that gave IMImobile access to Skinkers’ existing clients along with an advantage of having an in-house digital agency. Skinkers developed desktop apps, games, iPhone/iPad and Android apps, along with products related to web and social platforms. It also acquired a London based music aggregator DX3 in November 2008.


In June this year, IMImobile raised £30 million through an IPO, by issuing 25 million ordinary shares of 10 pence each at an issue price of 120 pence per share. This represented for 53% of the company’s total issued share capital. After deducting underwriting discounts and other expenses, IMImobile received around £27 million from the offering. More on IMIMobile’s plans with its IPO proceeds here.




IMImobile acquires mobile messaging platform TextLocal for around £13.15M, Technology newsTechnical, Technology, Technology Trends
IMImobile acquires mobile messaging platform TextLocal for around £13.15M

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