Hyderabad-based digital marketing solutions company Ybrant Digital Ltd has completed its reverse merger with IT outsourcing services provider LGS Global, to become yet another digital media firm to be listed on the stock market.
On debut, the company’s share price rocketed 7.6 per cent to close at Rs 94.95 a unit. At this price, the company commands a market cap of Rs 4,522 crore or $822 million.
The combined consolidated provisional revenues for the financial year ended March 31, 2012, are pegged at Rs 1,320 crore and the profit after tax (PAT) at Rs 190 crore. This means the firm is trading at 23.8x its FY12 net profit.
Although not strictly comparable, among other large and listed digital media firms, Info Edge (India) is currently trading at 35x its FY12 net profit.
“This is a significant event in the history of Ybrant Digital. We look forward to the continued co-operation of our shareholders, partners and other stakeholders,†said Suresh Reddy, chairman and MD of the company.
Started in 2000, Ybrant Digital offers digital marketing solutions to businesses, agencies and online publishers globally. The firm has offices in 20 countries, including the US, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Mexico, the UK, France, Germany, Sweden, Ukraine, Serbia, Israel, China, India and Australia, among others. Moreover, it has partners in Spain, Greece and the Netherlands.
The firm has raised over $100 million in equity and debt from some of the top PE funds and counts among its shareholders Oak Investment Partners and GE Asia Pacific Capital, among others.
In May this year, Ybrant Digital entered into an agreement to acquire PriceGrabber, LowerMyBills and ClassesUSA.com from Experian plc, an information services company and currently one of the top five Internet advertisers in the US. Ybrant said that it would acquire these three businesses for a total of $175 million (around Rs 938 crore), including $100 million in cash and another $75 million in loan note.
Ybrant acquired several global businesses over the past five years, including Lycos (in an all-stock deal in August 2010), Australian Ad Network Max Interactive and Argentina-based ad network Dream Ad (in 2009), Israeli company Oridian (for $13 million) and Serbia-based Seenetix (in 2007), US-based MediosOne (in 2006) and also the ad network AdDynamix (for $10 million). The company also picked up minority stake in Israel-based Web 3.0 in an all-cash deal in June 2011.
(Edited by Sanghamitra Mandal)