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Indian Mobile Services Firm IMI Mobile To Buy Win Plc

UK mobile content and services company Win Plc announced today that it is recommending to shareholders a cash offer from the Sequoia-backed Indian mobile services firm IMI Mobile. The 141 pence ($2.11) per share offer values WIN at around £15.93 million ($ 23.8 million). This represents a 43 percent premium to the share price on the 29th April, the closing price before discussions were announced.

Not all of Win’s shareholders are happy with the offer. Before today’s announcement, ISIS Equity Partners, Win’s largest shareholder with 19.1 percent of the company, released a statement on 10 June that “encouraged the Win Board not to recommend an offer at this level.” It said, “In our opinion, the potential offer, at 141 pence per Win ordinary share, would substantially undervalue the Company.

ISIS also said that it believe Win’s earnings have “the potential to benefit from economic recovery,” noting that opportunities in mobile are expanding, and that the company’s recent investment in its messaging platform “could materially enhance the capacity of its business and allow it to address new markets.”

ISIS’s unhappiness fits into a growing trend in which institutional investors are trying to repel “predators” as the FT.com calls them, attracted to companies listed on London’s Alternative Investments Markets (AIM), thanks to their cheap share prices and the weak sterling.

In its statement today, Win hinted at the company’s frustration during the last few years, noting that it was difficult for it to develop, as it either needed to acquire or be acquired to achieve the scale it needed to succeed.

The company said, “It has been difficult for Win, as a publicly traded company, to use its shares to fund suitable acquisitions on acceptable terms without such acquisitions being potentially earnings dilutive in the short term.”

It added that it was recommending the offer because it “provides shareholders with the certainty of being able to realize their investment in Win at a price which represents a substantial premium to the share price prior to the announcement of the approach, immediately in cash, and at a level which may not otherwise in the WIN Board’s view be available for some time.”

Unhappy as they may be, it appears there’s little ISIS can do about it. IMI Mobile has already received irrevocable undertakings or letters of intent from Win’s directors and shareholders in respect of 28.56 percent of the company’s shares. IMI Mobile already owns 2.37 percent, and needs to reach 50 percent.

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