Imagine €47m Irish Broadband deal

bealtine

http://www.rte.ie/business/2008/0429/imagine.html?rss

Communications group Imagine has bought Irish Broadband from NTR and Kilsaran Concrete in a deal worth €47m.

Imagine says the deal will create an enlarged company with annual revenue of more than €100m. After the deal, NTR and Kilsaran will have a combined 25% stake in the new firm.

Imagine will not be taking on any debt, and the current owners will invest a further €7m in the merged company.
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Imagine, headed by founder and telecoms entrepreneur Sean Bolger, has offices in Ireland, the Netherlands and the US. In Ireland, it provides fixed, broadband and other telecoms services to business and residential customers through the Imagine, Gaelic Telecom, Access and Cinergi brands.

Mr Bolger said the network and spectrum assets involved in the Irish Broadband buy would help it to deploy WiMAX technology, which will allow the next generation of high-speed communications services to be delivered.

watty

So.. BT takes IOL & Esat, UPC takes NTL + Chorus, Vodaphone takes Perlico, O2 takes Smart, Imagine takes IBB.

Who's next. We still have too many ISPs.

damien

Mr Bolger said the network and spectrum assets involved in the Irish Broadband buy would help it to deploy WiMAX technology, which will allow the next generation of high-speed communications services to be delivered.

Bought. A. Donkey.

So the real price was 40M and no debt? Interesting they press released so late tonight, probably due to the press getting word early this evening and they wanted to beat the Irish Times' spin.

Sponge Bob

They did not pay €47m , they seemingly booked €47m of 'value'

Overall I am not enamoured of this deal.

watty

Really I can't comment, unless I wasn't with an ISP. If I wasn't I'd have plenty of comment

damien

From the Irish Times:

NTR and Kilsaran had been reported to be looking for a buyer for Irish Broadband for some time. A number of other operators ran the rule over the company, including Digiweb and Clearwire, but they balked at a reported asking price of €20-€25 million.

The €47 million value on this deal is understood to include the writing off of debts by NTR and Kilsaran. Mr Bolger confirmed that Imagine was acquiring Irish Broadband debt-free.

Potential buyers were also concerned that Irish Broadband's network would need a significant investment to upgrade it to the latest WiMax technology which can support voice, video and next generation services.

Mr Bolger said the majority of the network is WiMax capable and only requires a simple upgrade. He said Imagine had decided to take a strategic position in WiMax because major players such as Intel and Time Warner are backing it. All laptop computers shipped with Intel chips from the second half of the year will have the capability to access WiMax networks.

Irish Broadband had incurred heavy losses as it rolled out its wireless network. In the year to the end of March 2007, the most recent for which accounts are available, it had a pretax loss of €22.5 million. In April 2007 NTR and Kilsaran backed the firm with €25 million in loans, which was on top of €32.5 million they provided as interest-free convertible loans in December 2005.

crawler

going to follow Watty on this and not offer much comment...

the one thing that continues to amaze me is how people buy the Wimax story - when the US talk about Wimax they talk about frequencies of 2.5Ghz right down to 700Mhz on a continuous basis - here it is pockets of 3.5Ghz spectrum which is simply too high a frequency to use embedded chips in portable devices for the vast majority of people.

Not a bad move for Mr Bolger in my view but he had better paint the walls & flip it very quickly or it will become a bit of a headache me thinks.....

watty

And we won't talk about the Wimax trials of N+++++ R+++++ in P+++++ either.

I think WiMax does what it says on the tin. Unfortunately most people don't take time to read the tin but just the press release. Crawler has memorized the writing on all the tins I think.


I don't expect the USA 2.5Hz Mobile WiMax (ClearWire XOhm?) to be very compelling. The new 700MHz would have been a nice success for WiMax Mobile or Flash-OFDM, but it will be HSDPA/LTE etc.

damien

crawler

Watty - Wimax is a moving feast - 802.16e is not even fully out the door and hello 802.16m.

http://www.unstrung.com/document.asp?doc_id=152397

So more hardware forklift upgrades needed to go from e to m - and then it all needs to talk LTE also......I see many stranded assets/investments on the horizon for those who are not careful.

RangeR

watty wrote: »

So.. BT takes IOL & Esat, UPC takes NTL + Chorus, Vodaphone takes Perlico, O2 takes Smart, Imagine takes IBB.

Who's next. We still have too many ISPs.

When did this happen? I never heard of O2 taking Smart.

Dammit, you sleep for a month and the whole world rushes by....

byte

Is the deal final yet?

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/o2-pounce-on-smart-telecom-1339684.html

Marlow

Sponge Bob wrote: »

They did not pay €47m , they seemingly booked €47m of 'value'.

Well, NTR and Kilsaran got better value for money, Imagine did not spend €40m, but will spend €7m, which they would have spend anyway, because they were looking at WiMAX, with or without IBB.

Now they've just got the foot-work done in one go. The usual easy way out.

/Martin

paulm17781

IrishTLR wrote: »

When did this happen? I never heard of O2 taking Smart.

It was reported they were looking at Smart. I don't think a deal is even near completion yet.

bealtine

paulm17781 wrote: »

It was reported they were looking at Smart. I don't think a deal is even near completion yet.

There was a piece in Sundays Times (UK) saying that Smart are calling for new buyers...I don't have a link to it nor can I find it on their website.

byte

bealtine wrote: »

There was a piece in Sundays Times (UK) saying that Smart are calling for new buyers...I don't have a link to it nor can I find it on their website.

I noticed it in the Business pull-out of the Irish Sunday Times too, and also is a fullpage article on broadband in Ireland, though I haven't got reading it yet.