News blog

ANT

• BY: Andrew Hore |
• POSTED: 30/11/2012 |

Canada-based Espial is offering 20.5p a share for IPTV software developer ANT through a newly incorporated UK subsidiary.

ANT is valued at £4.98m at the bid price, which is still below the share price less than nine months ago. Espial already has the backing of shareholders owning 49.1% of ANT. Espial had C$9.96m in the bank at the end of September 2012, while ANT had £3.6m at the end of October 2012. ANT is being acquired for not much more than the cash figure but this has reduced by £800,000 in four months and the cash figure will be much lower at the end of 2012.

TSX-listed Espial has developed TV Browser and TV Everywhere software which enables usage of the web over the TV. In 2008, Espial acquired Kasenna in order to widen its range of software.

Espial’s third quarter 2012 revenues were $3.07m, while ANT generated revenues of £2.47m in the first six months of 2012, although it warned that full year revenues would be lower than originally expected. Espial’s market capitalisation of C$13.9m is not much larger than ANT’s bid value. Both companies are loss-making and are trading at a lower valuation than when they floated. Espial raised C$28.8m when it floated on TSX in June 2007.

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