CareerBuilder to acquire JobScout24

September 13, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

CareerBuilder is to acquire JobScout24, a major job board in Germany with more than 3.36 million users and more than 250,000 jobs.

Three years ago, CareerBuilder launched CareerBuilder.de, which today stands as one of the fastest-growing job sites inGermany.  Operating on the CareerBuilder platform, JobScout24.de will serve as another point where employers and job seekers can connect.  The acquisition will also include Jobs.de, another popular site with significant SEO (search engine optimization) value.

“We have seen a lot of resilience in the German economy despite the debt crisis, and activity on our site points to more confidence in hiring,” said Tony Roy, president of CareerBuilder EMEA.  “This is an exciting partnership with a respected, prominent brand that will further underscore CareerBuilder’s competitive positioning in this critical market.  With CareerBuilder and JobScout24 coming together, employers and job seekers will have access to a wider range of services and will have higher visibility in the marketplace.”

Germany, Frankfurt

 

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Mobile Interactive Group acquires Zaypay

September 13, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Global mobile and digital technology business Mobile Interactive Group (MIG) has acquired global micropayments business Zaypay. Details of the deal were not disclosed, though it was announced as an all cash sum.

Based in the Netherlands, Zaypay is a profitable mobile micropayments business that launched in 2006. To date the business has provided secure micropayment solutions to several hundred global customers.

Barry Houlihan, CEO and Founder, MIG commented “MIG’s vision for Zaypay is to build a one stop shop for online and mobile monetisation solutions to merchants, online billing providers and developers globally.  We understand that developers are driving our industry now and Zaypay is a platform that has been built by developers, for developers – Our aim is to build stronger relationships specifically with the developer community, to provide developers with a frictionless payment system that’s tailored to their platforms and to further understand and support their requirements around monetisation on an international scale.”

MIG will continue to operate Zaypay as a standalone business.

In June 2010, MIG acquired mobile marketing and CRM provider Piri Limited and in February 2011 announced the acquisition of mobile technology, services and marketing company Golden Bytes International B.V. (GB).

UK, London & Netherlands, Amsterdam

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Google acquires Zagat

September 13, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Google has acquired restaurants guide publisher Zagat. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. However, WSJ quoting “a person familiar with the matter” is reporting that that Google paid around $125 million. Zagat had put itself up for sale in 2008, but failed to find a buyer prepared to pay a reported asked for price of $200M.

The first Zagat New York City Restaurants guide was published 30 years ago. Zagat now covers over 100 countries worldwide and a range of leisure activities including dining, travel, nightlife, shopping, golf, movies and music. Zagat has over 350,000 consumers participating in their surveys each year.

Marissa Mayer, VP, Local, Maps and Location Services said in the Google announcement, “I’m thrilled that Google has acquired Zagat. Moving forward, Zagat will be a cornerstone of our local offering—delighting people with their impressive array of reviews, ratings and insights, while enabling people everywhere to find extraordinary (and ordinary) experiences around the corner and around the world.”

In an announcement on the Zagat website, David Zagat said, ““Nina and I will continue to be active in the business as co-Chairs; however, the merger of our resources, expertise and platforms with those of Google will give us the opportunity to greatly expand.” Google’s Mayer calls Zagat’s reviews “one of the earliest forms of user-generated content—gathering restaurant recommendations from friends, computing and distributing ratings before the Internet as we know it today even existed.”

USA, Mountain View, CA & New York, NY

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Seven Peaks acquires the assets of struggling daily-deal provider CityDeals

September 13, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Family adventure parks operator Seven Peaks has acquired the assets of struggling regional online daily-deal provider CityDeals. Seven Peaks was one of the company’s creditors. They have acquired CityDeals’ assets – but not its liabilities – for an undisclosed sum.

As part of the acquisition, Seven Peaks is working with merchants to ensure all deals sold online to date through CityDeals will be honored. Seven Peaks is also working out arrangements to take care of any merchants that have been awaiting payment from CityDeals. Merchants involved with CityDeals are supportive of the transaction.

“Consumers and merchants have loved the value they’ve received from CityDeals over the years,” said Bruce Law, VP of Marketing at Seven Peaks. “Seven Peaks was one of those satisfied merchants. The acquisition of CityDeals by Seven Peaks assures that CityDeals will continue to provide tremendous benefits to consumers and regional business owners and have stamina to deliver those benefits over the long haul.”

USA, Utah,

 

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Daily deals site BuyWithMe acquires TownHog.com

September 12, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Daily deals site BuyWithMe has made its sixth acquisition of the year, the purchase of TownHog.com, a San Francisco-based daily deals provider. TownHog is a venture of Dotblu Inc.

“TownHog’s success in the industry is notable,” said Jim Crowley, CEO of BuyWithMe, Inc. “They are a competitive force in multiple major markets around the country. We are excited to integrate their merchants and consumers into our ever-growing daily deal and merchant loyalty platform.”

USA, New York, NY

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Bigpoint takes over the development team of 49Games GmbH

September 12, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Browser-based online game provider Bigpoint is immediately taking over the entire production team of development studio 49Games. More than 40 full-time employees will now become part of Bigpoint’s international team and will be developing online games instead of console titles. The current projects under development in 49Games will be completed by the production team. Aside from the production team, all rights to their multiplatform technology, assets, licenses etc. remain the property of 49Games GmbH.

Bigpoint will concentrate solely on the development of online and mobile games in the future. The expertise of the recently taken-over developers will be put to use on upcoming Unity 3D projects.

“The team at 49Games is one of the best development teams in the console sports-games industry. We’re very excited to add them to the Bigpoint team for our online games,” explains Heiko Hubertz, CEO and founder of Bigpoint. “Together with our development team, we’re going to continue our mission to deliver our users top-quality gaming fun.”

“I’m very pleased with Bigpoint’s acquisition of our development team and I’m confident that the team will deliver fantastic 3D MMOs for the quickly growing international online company,” claims Jan-Hendrik Ohl, CEO of 49Games GmbH.

After the takeover and merger of Radon Labs and Elofd in Berlin last year and the purchase of Planet Moon Studios at the start of 2011, this is the fourth takeover for Bigpoint.

“We plan on expanding,” states so Heiko Hubertz, “and so we’re still on the lookout for other excellent studios like 49 Games. In the future, we’re definitely going to make more international acquisitions.”

Germany, Hamburg

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FriendFinder Networks acquires BDM Global Ventures

September 12, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

FriendFinder Networks an internet and technology company providing services in the expanding markets of social networking and web-based video sharing, has acquired BDM Global Ventures Ltd., the company which owns the operations of JigoCity, for a combination of stock and warrants.  The merger consideration consists of approximately 1.6 million shares of FFN common stock and approximately 6.4 million FFN warrants with exercise prices ranging from $5.00-$18.00 per share.  Assuming the cashless exercise of all the warrants at the highest exercise price, the merger consideration will be approximately $65 million.

JigoCity is a global social commerce organisation providing daily deals. They have 150 employees and provide services in around 20 cities and offices in Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, China,South Korea, Brazil and Los Angeles. The company has plans to expand into additional countries by year end. JigoCity generated revenue of approximately $600,000 in July and approximately $1.1 million in August and has grown its user base to over 1 million members.

JigoCity is led by an experienced management team including Founder and Chief Executive Officer Tony Bobulinski, Founder and Chief Marketing Officer Michael Dorman and Founder and Chief Strategy Officer Joshua Mallamud. Following the acquisition, JigoCity will retain its brand identity while benefiting from FriendFinder Networks’ website traffic and user base. JigoCity will remain based in Los Angeles, CA with its Asia Regional Headquarters in Shanghai, China.

Marc Bell, Chief Executive Officer of FriendFinder Networks Inc. said, “We are expanding into today’s rapidly growing social commerce environment and we are very excited about the new possibilities this acquisition presents. Not only are we acquiring a growing and successful social commerce company, we believe we are gaining an additional avenue to monetize our foreign markets. China and the Asia-Pacific region represent one of the fastest growing areas of the world in terms of economic growth, internet usage and middle and upper class consumers. In addition, we believe this acquisition demonstrates the innovative ways we continue to leverage our large user base and the web traffic generated by our network of websites.”

USA, Sunnyvale, CA, Los Angeles, CA & China, Shanghai

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Batanga acquires MetroFlog, third Hispanic-focused acquisition in four months

September 12, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Batanga has acquired MetroFlog and partner sites, MetroBlog and MetroPostales. This is Batanga’s third Hispanic-focused acquisition in four months. In June Fusion DigiNet reported Batanga’s acquisitions of Adfunky and I-Network. The latest acquisition increases the company’s audience by over six million unique visitors a month.

MetroFlog.com is a social media platform that allows users to create individual spaces where they upload personal photos and share them among all other users. To date, MetroFlog users have published over twenty million photographs, uploading an additional sixty thousand photos daily. The photo blogs serve as catalyst for comments, guest signatures, making friends, and are at the core of the social experience on MetroFlog.com.

MetroBlog.com was developed on a common platform, enabling users to publish personal blogs as a means for social interaction. Users are encouraged to publish their thoughts, writings, and journal entries to share with other users such as themselves. MetroPostales provides users with hundreds of electronic greeting cards to share with friends and loved ones. Each of the properties provides Hispanics online with unique opportunities to communicate and network with one another.

“Our latest acquisition further solidifies our commitment to developing and delivering relevant and quality content to the Hispanic online audience. MetroFlog provides users with an alternative social experience that allows them to communicate and express themselves,” said Rafael Urbina, Chairman and CEO, Batanga, Inc. “We are thrilled to add such a dynamic social platform to the Batanga, Inc. family of sites and eager to introduce them to advertisers.”

USA, Miami, FL

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Final results of Match.com tender offer for Meetic S.A. announced

September 12, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Match.com, a personals company and an operating business of IAC/InterActiveCorp, announced that the French Autorite des marches financiers (AMF) have published the final results of the tender offer initiated by Match.com on Meetic S.A. The planned public offer was first reported on Fusion DigiNet in May this year.

A total of 808,115 shares were tendered in the subsequent offer period by Meetic shareholders.  Upon settlement and delivery of those shares, which is expected to occur on or prior to September 19, 2011, Match will hold approximately 18.6 million shares, representing approximately 81% of the share capital of Meetic S.A.

Meetic is a French stock corporation, with its registered office in Paris.  It is a leader in the European online dating market currently established in 16 European countries, and available in 13 languages. Meetic is listed in Compartment B of Euronext Paris of the NYSE Euronext (MEET.PA).

USA, New York, NY & France, Paris

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Centaur Media acquires Investment Platforms for up to £6.3M

September 6, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Business information and events group Centaur Media plc has acquired Investment Platforms, a specialist information business in the retail financial services sector. The purchase price is £1.8m, payable in cash at completion, and a further payment in cash subject to IPL’s profits in the year to 30 June 2014. The total purchase price will be capped at £6.3m.

IPL provides research data, analysis and advice on the subject of retail financial distribution and fund platforms, with a particular focus on financial wraps, or platforms that typically offer access to a range of asset types. It also organises events for product providers and intermediaries. The investment wrap and platform market has become one of the driving forces of the retail financial services industry in the past 10 years.

IPL was founded three years ago by vendor, Holly Mackay, who had previously developed and managed investment platforms for Merrill Lynch and Norwich Union in Australia before being appointed UK Director of Santander’s Allfunds Bank in 2005. IPL has quickly established itself as the leading source of information on this fast-growing specialist area and on retail investment distribution in general.Holly and her staff will remain with the business following the acquisition,

IPL’s revenues are currently generated principally through subscriptions to research reports, and from sponsorship and delegate revenues derived from events. Pro forma 2011 revenues and earnings before interest and tax (ebit) are £0.9m and £0.3m, respectively.  The value of gross assets of IPL at completion amounted to approximately £0.4m. The acquisition is expected to be immediately earnings enhancing.

Geoff Wilmot, CEO of Centaur, said:

“This earnings enhancing acquisition is an excellent fit with us. IPL provides specialist information and advice to the retail funds and intermediary community, which is a core market for Centaur, served by our leading brands Money Marketing and Fund Strategy.

“This market is in a period of significant change following the completion of the Retail Distribution Review and IPL is the leading expert information provider in the field.  Given our strong position in this market, we are ideally placed to provide IPL with full market distribution of its services. ”

UK, London

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