Paris and Warsaw, May 29, 2006
Jet Multimedia group acquires 100% of the capital of the company Avantis, one of the major players of the Polish market for mobile multimedia services.
This operation will constitute the base of the development of the Jet Multimedia group on Eastern Europe, a very dynamic market profiting from a strong growth potential.
Created in 2000 by a team of experienced managers from the telecoms and online services industry, Avantis quickly positioned on MVAS - Mobile Value Added Services - market while working in particular for largest Polish media groups. Avantis launched in 2004 a mass market offer under the Mobista brand - www.mobista.pl - before acquiring in June 2005 the company Emisja, provider of Internet and WAP services - www.papla.pl - to build a powerful company on the Polish market of mobile services.
Avantis is now one of the major players of the market of the mobile services in Poland, a market in strong growth with more than 30 million subscribers. Avantis achieved in 2005 a proforma revenue of more than 30 M PLN (approximately 8 ME) for an operating profitability of approximately 20%. Avantis employs around fifty people based in Warsaw.
The main activities of Avantis are:
- Content aggregation and distribution: Avantis constituted a very complete catalogue including tens of thousands of contents like screens, animations, monophonic, polyphonic, Truetones/MP3 ringtones, mobile games plays and other applications... fitted to the Polish market.
- B to B services (direct marketing, payment systems for mobile) and B to C services (information and entertainment, chat, voting, quizzes, instant messaging...)
- Gateway and international Interconnection: Avantis provides access to the networks of the Polish mobile operators (Plus GSM, Era and Orange) for SMS, MMS, WAP and voice traffic of companies and B to B customers.
This operation, valuating Avantis for 35 M PLN (approximately 9 ME), is made in cash. This initial payment could be completed with earn-out payments within the limit of 40 M PLN (approximately 10 ME) according to the evolution of the activity and the results of 2006 and 2007. This strategic acquisition is immediately relutive for Jet Multimedia shareholders.
Jet Multimedia continues its strategy of international deployment, with a very strong position in Europe (France, Spain, Italy, Poland) and a significant presence in North Africa (Morocco, Tunisia) as well as on on the American continent (Canada, Argentina).
Wojciech Łukawski, founder and chairman of Avantis, comments this major step in Avantis evolution: "Joining the Jet Multimedia group will enable us to accelerate the development of Avantis.. Beyond the Polish market, we want to extend our activities to other Central and Eastern European countries, a zone in strong growth on which we will be the vector of development of Jet Multimedia."
Manuel Cruz, CEO of Jet Multimedia, considers this operation within the international development strategy of Jet Multimedia: "Our group, which has a major position on the market in Southern Europe, amplifies its international development, in particular on markets with interesting potential. We have all the assets for that, while capitalizing as well on our technological know-how as on our catalogue of contents and our marketing expertise. Today, with its diversified activities and its international position, Jet Multimedia group is able to know a strong and profitable growth."
