Dada Acquires Blogo, the Most Popular Specialised Blogging Network in Italy
28 February 2007
Dada S.p.A. (MTAX of the Italian Stock Exchange: DA.MI), a leader in the Web and mobile community and entertainment sector, has finalized an agreement for the acquisition of Blogo, a leading independent Italian digital nano-publishing player in the blog community, through its subsidiary Dada Mobile. Dada's aqcuistion of Blogo comes after buying out 30% of E-Box S.r.l., which owns the Blogo platform; with an option to raise their stakes to 100% with in the next two years.
The addition of Blogo's platform will increase Dada's assets and user base, with a view to optimizing the convergence between Dada's strengths in social networking/blogging and nano-publishing. Blogo (www.blogo.it), is the most visited network of specialized blogs in Italy with over 16 million monthly page visits and approximately 3.3 million single users per month (font: Audiweb/Nielsen, January 2007).
"Nano-publishing allows readers to find specific and concise quality information on-line which is up to date and which complements the institutional on-line information," Paolo Barberis, Chairman of Dada, said: "Autoblog.it pages, dedicated to the car industry, or Deluxeblog.it for luxury shopping, or Downloadblog.it, a specialised software and web services news site, all represent an innovative model and tool for multimedia communications."
E-Box's 2006 end of year revenue results are expected to be $551,627 (Euro 420,000), a figure which is mainly attributed to advertising sales - with more than 10 of the top advertisers having a permanent sponsorship contract with the company. They are also expecting an EBIT of $65,669 (Euro 50,000), which is equal to an approximate EBIT margin of 12%.
In line with the development strategy directives of Dada to strengthen its leadership in the blog sector, the acquisition of Blogo will also mean certain industrial synergies can be taken advantage of: amongst which is Dada Ad, the Dada advertising agency, will take over the exclusive advertising management rights for the whole of the Blogo network.
The 30% stake in E-Box S.r.l. will be acquired by Dada Mobile for the sum of $945,647 (Euro 720,000) from existing capital group funds and will be executed in 2 phases of equal amounts. The first was executed at the closing agreement on February 22, 2007, and the second will be executed one year from the initial closing. Together with the capital stake, Dada has been given certain management rights which particularly refer to the nominations of executive and management representatives of the governing bodies along with voting rights on the board and in important board meetings.
Please Note
The official Dada S.p.A. press release was released to the financial market on February 22, 2007 and can be found on their Web site at http://dada.dada.net/en. For direct link to release please visit the following site: http://dada2006.dada.net/en/press_room/comunicati_stampa/homecontents. php?id=1885 (Due to its length, this URL may need to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser's address field. Remove the extra space if one exists.)
The currency exchange rate applied is Eur 1 = US $1.313. (www.x-rates.com)
About Dada S.p.A.
Dada S.p.A. (dada.dada.net) is a leading international provider of web and mobile community and entertainment services. Dada is listed on the Italian Stock Exchange (MTAX STAR Segment: DA.MI) and the Dada management and founders own about 14.6% of the share capital, and the RCS MediaGroup, have an approximate stake of 44.2%.
The consumer offering of Dada - expressed through the community Dada.net (www.dada.net) and the brands life.dada.net, love.dada.net, andmobi.dada.net - is characterized by a rich range of fee-based community and entertainment products and services to communicate entertain and educate. These services are accessible both via the PC and the mobile phone (the latter using SMS/MMS technologies and on the "Decks" - the micro-portals of the main mobile phone operators).
The Dada consumer offering is available, in addition to Italy, in the USA through its subsidiary Dada USA, in Spain through the subsidiary Dada Iberia, and in Portugal, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, Hungary, Canada, Brazil, China and Australia.
Within Dada Group there is also the subsidiary Register.it S.p.A., the Italian and Spanish leader in the management of private and business online presence.
For further information: Dada S.p.A. External Relations Chiara Ronchetti Tel: + 39 02/54027718 Fax: + 39 02/54027749 chiara.ronchetti@dada.net or Fusion Public Relations Matthew Clark, 212-651-4208 matt.clark@fusionpr.com
Source: newswire
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