Editor’s Note:
Welcome to the AKA.TV Snapshot. In a world of information overload, its all about cutting through
the endless press announcements and giving you the headlines that you need to know. This month we’ve trawled through the AKA.TV Markets & Companies archives to bring you this information
snack, a throw-away take-away of the emerging trends of the last few months...
2008 – A Busy Year for the Deal Do-Ers:
Flicking through the AKA.TV Markets & Companies Sector archive, it is clear why Ajay Chowdhury, the EnQii Media CEO declares in his VideoView that our industry is now really beginning to ‘cross the chasm’.
There may have been no IPOs (so far) in 2008, but there have been deals galore – both venture capital deals and consolidation through acquisition. It seems that all across the global industry companies are looking for ways to work together. There is a growing belief that those who succeed now, are likely to emerge the long term winners.
With very few companies in our sector making the kind of money to enable major organic consolidation and growth, we are seeing alternative strategies employed.
The better placed are successfully raising external finance – in the first 5 months AKA has reported on more than $100M of private equity deals in the industry.
Of the 15 reported acquisitions, many have seen established companies from other market sectors snapping up digital signage assets to gain a foothold in our industry.
Where the finance just hasn’t been available, companies have sought strategic alliances in every conceivable direction to help develop their businesses.
(1) China is still booming…
(2) Other sectors are seeing the opportunity...
(3) Companies are beginning to look overseas...
(4) Content companies have a growing significance…
(5) All is not lost in the UK public market..
(6) Networks continue to chase scale...
(7) Specialist media sales aggregators are prospering...
(8) The deal flow is not slowing…
To read these articles in full, simply search the archive in the AKA.TV Markets & Companys section.
(1) China is still booming...
Focus Media’s share price may have fallen over the last months (based on problems in their mobile phone business) but their overall business reported 171% revenue growth in 2007. They were not alone in announcing triple figure growth, Vision China reported a 300% revenue increase for their digital signage business for Q1. AdVision meanwhile raised $30M from SAIF Partners to build a network of 35 giant LEDs...
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(2) Other sectors are seeing the opportunity...
The year started with US based satellite company Ariel Way picking up outdoor specialist Lime Truck in January, and then confirming their ambitions during March with the acquisition of media sales group Mason Media. In China Jingwei a marketing services company spent $12M to purchase outdoor advertiser RedFlag, and Redgate an integrated media company jumped into the shopping mall market with its acquisition of network owner MediaShell.
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(3) Companies are beginning to look overseas...
In Europe Neo Advertising expanded its international network base by acquiring Dot One of Spain and Portugal, merging its Canadian business with Traffic and establishing new joint ventures in Italy and Poland. Neo’s software supplier BroadSign killed two birds with one stone by buying Navori in Switzerland, gaining a local office from which to support Neo, and also a distributed enterprise software platform with over 17,000 connections to compliment their online SaaS solution. In the hardware sector US based Symon moved into Europe with its acquisition of telecoms supplier Dacon PLC. In the big league, CBS Outdoor consolidated its position in South America with the acquisition of IOA.
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(4) Content companies have a growing significance...
US based Channel M raised over $6M from a range of partners, including Intel Capital to enable them to start the process of connecting up their programming base of 100,000 retail and advertising screens. Meantime US based content company DataCall acquired PodCast to give them access to the growing mobile download market.
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(5) All is not lost in the UK public market...
Though ImageSound announced that it was looking to de-list, there was better news from Avanti, which announced a doubling of revenues and Vision Media Group completed a successful fund raising of almost $2M.
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(6) Networks continue to chase scale...
Solo Health, Captive Media, Modiv and Adwalker all raised venture funding to grow their networks. Zoom Media consolidated its position in the US restaurant sector by reaching 20,000 ad sites with the purchase of Alloy’s Insight business. Retec in the UK acquired Liquid Digital to develop its point of sale presence.
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(7) Specialist media sales aggregators are prospering...
SeeSaw Networks have seen their range of partnerships grow to over 40 networks. Adcentricity in Canada raised CD$3M to build a presence in the US market, and DoMedia merged with OOHConnect to combine their sales resources.
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(8) The Deal Flow is not slowing...
There were 5 acquisitions in March and 6 VC deals done is April. The industry is proving that there is still plenty of appetite for our sector our there, even if the general economy is slowing.
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All of this activity shows that the market is coming of age. Its not all plain sailing (both Buzztime and OutdoorPartner Media last week recorded falling Q1 media revenues), but it would seem that the market definitely has a building momentum.
If the markets develop a little stability over the summer months, it is very likely that we will see more companies in the IPO market come September.
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