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Lycos Internet Limited, a Hyderabad-based digital marketing company, is in the process of acquiring TriTelA Gmbh, an Austrian company which owns the asset MYSMS messenger and tech platforms SPH Wien and Kika Social, in an all-stock deal.
As a part of the transaction, Lycos will issue 28.48 million additional shares in return for the 100% ownership of the company. The deal has been approved by the board of Lycos and is subject to various regulatory and shareholder approvals, Lycos said in a filing to the stock exchanges on Monday.
MYSMS, which claims to be one of the top 10 messenger apps globally, has SMS and instant messaging capabilities. It offers cross-compatibility, working over Android, Mac, Windows and any web browser.
MYSMS, which currently has three million users, supports group messaging and MMS, message scheduling, message export and backup, and connects with services such as Evernote, Dropbox and Google Drive. It charges $9.99 as annual premium membership per user.
SPH Wien is a content management and analytics platform for video, while Kika Social is a unified platform for social media listening, engaging and measurement.
“We are expecting TriTelA to contribute between $1.5 million and $2 million (Rs 10.17 crore and Rs 13.56 crore) to Lycos' EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) in the first year. The whole framework of these assets are extremely useful for what we want to do going forward, especially on the communications side,” Suresh Reddy, chairman and chief executive officer of Lycos, told Business Standard.
This acquisition brings in cloud-based framework to Lycos that can tie multiple nodes (SMSes, instant messages, wearables, cars and appliances) with the consumer through multiple devices (smart phones, Tablets, laptops and OTTs). This also gives the large user base of MYSMS messenger an opportunity to access all the services in the Lycos ecosystem, the company said.
At 12:17 pm, the company’s stock was trading at Rs 30.70, up 12.25%, on the BSE.
