Home / Deals / Advised Wayfinder Systems, a provider of innovative mobile location-based services, on its acquisition by Vodafone Group

Advised Wayfinder Systems, a provider of innovative mobile location-based services, on its acquisition by Vodafone Group
Dec 2008
acquired by
  • Sector: Systems & Deep Tech
  • Deal Type: Strategic Deals; Public Deals
  • Engagement type: Sellside
  • Size: <$200m
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Arma Partners is pleased to announce that it acted as sole financial advisor to Wayfinder Systems AB (NGM: WAYF), including the provision of a fairness opinion to the Board of Directors, in relation to the recommended cash offer to acquire Wayfinder Systems AB made by Vodafone Group Plc.

The recommended cash offer of SEK 12.00 per share values the entire issued share capital of Wayfinder at approximately SEK 239 million (or $30 million), and represents a premium of approximately 253% to the Wayfinder closing price on 8 December 2008, and a premium of approximately 30% to the volume weighted average Wayfinder closing price for the twelve month period prior to announcement.

Wayfinder is one of the pioneers of mobile location-based services and offers a range of innovative products capable of greatly enriching the customer’s mobile experience. Customers can use the technology to search and find places of interest such as restaurants, petrol stations and ATMs. The Company provides services to major mobile phone manufacturers and operators all over the world as well as to more than 2 million unique users. The head office is located in Sweden with regional offices in France, Finland and Romania.

The Vodafone Group is the world’s leading international mobile communications group with approximately 280 million customers. Vodafone Group is committed to delivering new revenue growth around a rich set of mobile Internet services. Location-based services make up an important part of this commitment, enabling Vodafone Group to offer customers new, exciting services as a differentiator while driving mobile data growth.

– Provider of mapping, navigation and location-based services for connected mobile devices in Europe and North America

– Wayfinder provides content services such as digital city guides, traffic information, weather forecast, etc.

– Wayfinder had developed both an LBS platform and LBS applications

– Wayfinder reported revenues of c. €12.2m in 2007 (2006: €3.1m). The company employs c. 105 people

– Vodafone (LSE: VOD) is a major provider of voice and data communication services to consumers and enterprise customers globally

– As of 31st December 2008, the Group had 289 million customers. The company recorded revenue of £35.5bn in 2008

– The group has global operations spanning Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific, the US, and the UK. It is headquartered in Berkshire, UK and employs 72,000 people

– Vodafone’s new Internet Services Group believes LBS services will generate significant additional data ARPU, to offset declining voice ARPU. In addition, LBS-based social networking services will reduce churn among the subscriber base

– Vodafone will use Wayfinder to create new proprietary LBS services for global deployment to Vodafone operating companies

– Wayfinder was Vodafone’s preferred acquisition candidate for its scalable and fully integrated platform and applications

– Over time applications and services developed in-house will replace third-party solutions

– Arma Partners was engaged to manage a sell-side process for publicly listed Wayfinder Systems. There were no information leaks over the five month process

– Arma Partners helped to successfully maximise shareholder value with an exit value of 2.4x LTM service revenue. During the sale process the NASDAQ index dropped 30%

– The SEK 12.00 offer price represented a 253% premium over Wayfinder’s closing share price of SEK 3.40 as of 8 December 2008, the last trading day prior to the announcement of the offer. This was the highest premium announced in the European technology sector in 2008

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