AP buys stake in Bambuser, strengthens live UGC video capability

The Associated Press has purchased a minority stake in Bambuser, the  live video service that allows users to broadcast, watch and share live video through mobile phones and computers. The investment builds on the exclusive editorial relationship that the AP has with Bambuser.

Under terms of the deal AP’s director of global video news, Sandy MacIntyre, will join Bambuser’s board as a non-executive director. It is the culmination of a three-year relationship with Bambuser that last year saw the AP sign an operational agreement providing news agency exclusivity for real-time video syndication of content from participating Bambuser users. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Bambuser has a proven track record for enabling real-time creation, solicitation and distribution of user-generated content (UGC), especially for news-related content.

The AP already uses UGC-sourced and verified content as an everyday part of the news agency’s newsgathering activities, and there is increasing demand for live video content from broadcasters and online publishers. Through Bambuser, AP can source UGC video news live from the scene from eyewitnesses exclusively for its broadcast and online publisher customers. In addition, Bambuser provides the AP with access to an established community of video contributors who can act as effective “first responders” across the world. AP’s journalists also use Bambuser as a newsgathering tool when out in the field.

“User-generated video content of live and breaking news is the new frontier of news generation,” MacIntyre said. “Bambuser is the proven platform for eyewitnesses around the world to stream their video content and has been invaluable to the AP over the past year, allowing us to access footage of verifiable breaking news stories that would simply not have been possible before. Moreover, we have always been deeply impressed by the proven technology from the small but very talented team at Bambuser.”

MacIntyre added: “This investment by the AP is a natural extension of our existing relationship with Bambuser and will ensure that we retain our dominant capability in gathering and verifying UGC video news. The evidence that UGC is set to grow in importance and volume is plain to see. Nearly a fifth of the world’s population has a smartphone and that is a phenomenal eyewitness resource that Bambuser makes technologically possible. It means that anyone can be one button click away from generating live news that will change the way the world receives the “first word” of a story. With the AP and Bambuser working closely together, I firmly believe we can take UGC to new heights.”

UK, London

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BC Partners to acquire Springer Science+Business Media

springerspringer1London based private equity business BC Partners is to acquire Springer Science + Business Media, from Swedish private equity group EQT Partners and the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation for approximately €2.3 billion including performance components. It is Springer’s third leveraged buyout in 10 years and means it is dropping plans, only announced last month, to go public in Frankfurt.

Cinven and Candover created the company in 2003 through the €1.7bn merger of BertelsmannSpringer and Dutch publisher KAP. EQT Partners and the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation acquired Springer in 2010 from Cinven and Candover for around €2.3bn, including debt. Since then, the owners have invested €304 million and Springer has improved sales by 6.4% p.a. to €981 million and EBITDA by 12.6% p.a. to €341 million in 2012. EQT Partners and the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation is expected to make between 2.5 to 3 times their initial investment. They will also retain a minority interest in the company.

bcpartners

Springer, which competes with Reed Elsevier and Wolters Kluwer, publishes approximately 2,200 English-language journals annually and produced nearly 8,000 new book titles in 2012 in diverse fields including science, technology, medicine, commerce and transport. The Company  also publishes online journals, e-books, professional services materials and open access publishing. Springer has more than 7,000 employees and reported sales of €981 million in 2012.

Ewald Walgenbach, Managing Partner at BC Partners, said, “Springer Science + Business Media is a well-established company in a growing sector and has excellent future prospects. The company has been one of the most innovative in its field in terms of developing new ways to distribute and access high quality publications. Its international footprint offers attractive opportunities and it is positioned to benefit from the growth of the knowledge economy worldwide. We look forward to partnering with management to support the company’s growth plans over the coming years.”

BC Partners was advised by Credit Suisse, Nomura and Jefferies. Legal advice was provided by Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.

Germany, Hamburg & UK, London & Sweden, Stockholm

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Live Nation Entertainment acquires a majority stake in BDG Music Group,

LIVE NATION ENTERTAINMENT LOGOLive Nation Entertainment has acquired a majority stake in BDG Music Group, the Baltic region’s largest concert promotion company.

Since early 2012, BDG Music has produced more than 50 shows in the Baltics and sold more than 200,000 tickets. The group will bdgretain its current management team, although upon completion of the deal, it will be renamed Live Nation Baltics. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Michael Rapino, President and Chief Executive Officer of Live Nation Entertainment, said: “With this acquisition we now have operations in 43 countries. This further demonstrates our ongoing commitment to expanding our global footprint, which enables us to bring live entertainment to even more fans around the world.”

This year Live Nation Baltics is on the bill for major concerts featuring Robbie Williams and Depeche Mode, among others.

USA, Beverly Hills, CA & Estonia, Tallinn

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ITV acquires US TV production company Thinkfactory Media

itvITV plc is acquiring a controlling stake in Thinkfactory Media, a US producer of reality, entertainment and drama, including the Emmy award-winning Hatfields & McCoys. Based in Los Angeles, the company was founded by Emmy-nominated Producer, Leslie Greif. Think Factory Media produces programming in most genres for television including:  features, unscripted series, documentaries, mini-series, branded entertainment projects, concerts, music specials and various movies of the week.

thinkfactorymedia

ITV will pay an upfront cash consideration of $30m for a 65% stake in Thinkfactory Media, with a put and call option to buy theremaining 35% of the company. The put and call option could be exercised from between 3 years after the initial deal and at the end of year 5 with the total amount paid linked to the performance of the company over that period.  ITV says that the multiple paid is similar to the range paid on their previous acquisitions.

UK, London & USA, Losa Angeles, CA

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WPP takes stake in early-stage mobile content platform Muzy

wppWPP has taken a stake in Muzy, Inc., an early-stage microblogging service focused on mobile content creation. Muzy has attracted over 20 million users globally and is adding more than 1 million new users each month.

The investment is being made through WPP Ventures, based in Silicon Valley and run by President Tom Bedecarré. He is also Chairman of AKQA. WPP Ventures explores early-stage investments in new technology companies that offer innovative solutions to WPP clients and strengthen the capabilities of WPP.

muzy

Headquartered in San Francisco, Muzy was launched in 2011 by its cofounders, CEO Andrew Chen and CTO Matt Rubens. Like manyweb publishing startups, Muzy currently employs less than 10 people. Muzy will use the investment proceeds to further scale the engineering team and build out the suite of creative publishing tools for the Muzy platform. It offers more than 50 mobile publishing tools and a global network for sharing content and is a Top 100 photo app in 70+ countries.

UK, London & USA, San Francisco

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Bauer Media announces full ownership of OK! Magazine in Australia and New Zealand

bauer mediaBauer Media has acquired the remaining 50% of the weekly title, OK!, from its joint venture partner, Northern and Shell.

As well as buying out the second half of OK! Australia, Bauer Media will now own 100% of the OK! magazine brand in Australia and New Zealand.

Matthew Stanton, Bauer Media CEO, said, “This investment in OK!, in Australia and New Zealand, once again demonstrates our commitment to the market and the long-term viability of this popular global brand. OK! is a key brand in our publishing portfolio and we look forward to taking the title to the next level, with further investment in a number of publishing initiatives across multi-platforms.”

Paul Ashford, Group Editorial Director Northern and Shell, said, “We are happy to have concluded an agreement that will allow Bauer northern & shellMedia to take OK! magazine forward in Australia where they now have a strong local operation, and we thank everyone who has worked to create OK!’s amazing Australian success story as part of the worldwide OK! family (currently reaching over 23 million readers across the globe).”

OK! was launched in Australia by Northern and Shell in 2004 with 50% of the title acquired by Bauer Media in 2007. The magazine’s circulation has fallen from 140,000 in 2007 to 90,000 in December 2012.

Two years ago Northern & Shell sold the US edition of OK! to American Media. Northern & Shell continues to own the UK edition of OK!

UK, London & Australia, Sydney

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Google acquires Waze for over $1BN

googleGoogle has bought iOS map and navigation app Waze for just over $1billion (according to Reuters).

GeekTime is reporting that the price is $1.1 billion, “of which $1.03B will be transferred in cash directly to the company and its stockholders. An additional $100M will be awarded to employees based on performance.”

Waze was founded in 2007. The majority of its staff are based in Israel with around 10 others based in Palo Alto, USA. It has 47 million Wazeusers and has raised $67 million in funding from investors including: Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Blue Run Ventures and semiconductor company Qualcomm Inc.

On the Waze blog, Waze CEO Noam Bardin said “We are excited about the prospect of working with the Google Maps team to enhance our search capabilities and to join them in their ongoing efforts to build the best map of the world.” He also said, “Nothing practical will change here at Waze. We will maintain our community, brand, service and organization – the community hierarchy, responsibilities and processes will remain the same.”

In the Google announcement, Brian McClendon, Vice President, Geo, said “To help you outsmart traffic, today we’re excited to announce we’ve closed the acquisition of Waze. This fast-growing community of traffic-obsessed drivers is working together to find the best routes from home to work, every day.” He went on to say, “We’re excited about the prospect of enhancing Google Maps with some of the traffic update features provided by Waze and enhancing Waze with Google’s search capabilities.”

USA, Mountain View, California & Israel, Tel Aviv

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Ameresco acquires UK energy management business ESP

amerescoAmeresco, an energy efficiency and renewable energy company based in Framingham, MA, has acquired ESP, an energy management consulting company consisting of The Energy Services Partnership and ESP Response, located in Castleford, UK. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Founded in 2002 and incorporated in 2009, ESP is a  provider of  energy management solutions, including energy supply, invoice management and demand response services for commercial, industrial, manufacturing and utility customers.

“ESP is an exciting addition to the Ameresco family and will expand our enterprise energy management services to help support our multi-national customers that have additional requirements in the United Kingdom,” said George P. Sakellaris, President and Chief Executive Officer, Ameresco. “With this acquisition, we add local expertise to our EEM team and extend Ameresco’s energy supply and information services for our commercial, industrial and manufacturing customers with offices and requirements outside of North America. We look forward to working with the talented ESP team to further develop and cultivate growth opportunities serving not only Ameresco’s multi-national customers’ needs in the United Kingdom, but also ESP’s clients with offices and facilities in North America.”

“The entire ESP team is very pleased with the opportunity to enhance our delivery of sustainable services to our customers as part of Ameresco and to provide our expertise and services to Ameresco’s EEM customers in the United Kingdom,” said Derek Dixon, Chief Executive, ESP. “This acquisition also provides a great opportunity for our customers to benefit from the additional services and resources offered by Ameresco, a leading provider of energy efficiency and renewable energy services.”

Framingham, MA & UK, Castleford, West Yorkshire

Ameresco’s acquisition history

  • In July 2012, the Company’s wholly owned subsidiary Ameresco Canada Inc. acquired FAME, a privately held company offering infrastructure asset management solutions serving both public and private sector customers primarily in western Canada. The Company made a cash payment of $4,486,950 to acquire all of the outstanding stock of FAME.
  • In December 2011, the Company’s wholly owned subsidiary AIS acquired the xChange Point and energy projects businesses, including automated demand response, from EPS. The Company made an initial cash payment of $4,497,141 to acquire these assets. The purchase price is subject to post-closing adjustments for pro-ration of certain revenue and expense items and for certain indemnity obligations of EPS.
  • In August 2011, the Company acquired Ameresco Southwest (then known as APS Energy Services, Inc.) from Pinnacle West Capital Corporation. The Company made a cash payment of $50,057,113 to acquire all of the outstanding stock of Ameresco Southwest.
  • In July 2011, the Company acquired all of the outstanding capital stock of AEG for an initial cash payment of $11,993,236. The former stockholders of AEG, all of whom are now employees of the Company, may be entitled to receive up to $5,000,000 in additional consideration if AEG meets certain financial performance milestones.
  • In August 2010, the Company acquired Quantum Engineering and Development Inc. (“Quantum”) for an initial cash payment of $6,150,000. During April 2011, the Company made an additional payment of $1,956,366 in accordance with certain provisions of the stock purchase agreement with the former shareholders of Quantum.

Utilitywise plc to acquire Energy Information Centre Limited for £15.5 million

utilitywiseUtilitywise plc, a utility cost management consultancy, is to acquire  Energy Information Centre Limited (“EIC”) for a total equity consideration of £15.5 million. Plus they will clear EIC’s mortgage debt.

To fund the transaction, Utilitywise are placing new ordinary shares of 0.1 pence each by finnCap Limited to raise £5 million and a secondary placing of existing Ordinary Shares by finnCap Limited on behalf of certain directors and Hub Capital Partners to raise £17.2 million at a price of 100 pence .

In 2007,on behalf of Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC, Fusion Corporate Partners sold EIC to Broadfern Partners. Then in 2009 Broadfern rebranded as EIC.

Transaction highlights:

Total equity consideration of £15.5 million, to be satisfied by:eic

  • £10.5 million in cash
  • £5 million in new Utilitywise shares
  • In addition, Utilitywise will repay EIC’s existing mortgage debt of £1.94 million
  • Placing of £5 million in new Utilitywise shares to part fund cash consideration. Placing at 100p per share, representing a discount of 6.5% to the closing mid price as at 12 June 2013
  • The consideration represents historic EV/EBITDA* multiple of 6.7x

Geoff Thompson, CEO of Utilitywise, commented: “The acquisition of EIC creates an energy procurement and consultancy firm of real scale and adds further products and expertise to our already impressive portfolio. EIC’s strength lies predominantly in the larger, Industrial & Commercial segment of the market, an area which we had identified as a strategic area of growth, which combined with our market leading position in the SME segment gives us a strong foothold across the market and an excellent platform for growth. Utilising our outstanding proprietary IT and business analysis systems and our combined product range, we believe that we can identify and target a much greater portion of the I&C market, maximise the strength of the EIC brand and, thereby, the return on this investment for our shareholders.

“Since Utilitywise listed on AiM we have carefully added strategic, complementary offerings to our business through the acquisitions of Clouds (energy management) and Aqua Veritas (water consultancy). With the addition of EIC we now have an extremely compelling portfolio of products and services to meet the diverse energy needs of clients of all sizes and the expertise to deliver them. I would like to thank shareholders for their continued support as we continue to look to the future with great confidence.”

A circular will be sent today to shareholders giving notice of a general meeting of Utilitywise to be held on 2 July 2013 at 9.00 a.m. at the offices of finnCap Limited, 60 New Broad Street, London EC2M 1JJ. A copy of the circular can be found on the Company’s website http://www.utilitywise.com.

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Energy Management Transactions from Fusion

ICIS acquires carbon market analytics specialist Tschach Solutions GmbH

icisICIS, a global provider of energy market information and a division of Reed Business Information, is to acquire Tschach Solutions GmbH, a specialist carbon market analytics company based in Karlsruhe, Germany. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Tschach

Tschach Solutions, founded in 2010, offers a comprehensive portfolio of data, information and analytics products for the carbon market.Products include short and long-term price forecasts, which combine analysis of market fundamentals, policy and trading behaviour in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) and the global Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).  Tschach Solutions produces a range of data, delivered through online, written report and consulting propositions.

“Tschach Solutions is a fast growing business whose approach to market analysis has proved highly effective. This acquisition increases ICIS capability in short and long-term energy market analysis,” said Christopher Flook, Managing Director of ICIS. “Our collective capabilities will provide customers with unique insights”.

Dr Ingo Tschach, Managing Director of Tschach Solutions added that “ICIS’ strong position across the energy information market, coupled with its extensive sales and marketing capability, provides the opportunity to accelerate our plans for future growth. As part of ICIS, we are better positioned to capitalise on the increasing need for carbon market data and analysis”.

UK, Sutton, Surrey & Germany, Karlsruhe

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