Home / Deals / Advised GMT Communications Partners on the sale of its portfolio company MeetingZone, a UK-headquartered collaboration and UC services provider, to LoopUp Group plc

Advised GMT Communications Partners on the sale of its portfolio company MeetingZone, a UK-headquartered collaboration and UC services provider, to LoopUp Group plc
May 2018
(a portfolio company of GMT Communications Partners)
acquired by
  • Sector: Communication Services
  • Deal Type: Strategic Deals
  • Engagement type: Sellside
  • Size: <$200m
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Arma Partners is pleased to announce that it has acted as exclusive financial advisor to MeetingZone Limited on its sale by GMT Communications Partners and its management to LoopUp Group PLC (AIM: LOOP).

MeetingZone is a UK-headquartered conferencing and UC services provider with approximately 6,000 customers worldwide and international operations in Germany, Sweden and North America. MeetingZone provides audio conferencing services, Cisco‚ WebEx, Spark collaboration services and value-added audio services based around Microsoft Skype for Business.

With this acquisition, LoopUp will add significant scale and materially enhance earnings. The acquisition will constitute a reverse takeover under the AIM Rules for Companies.

This transaction further highlights Arma Partners’ deep expertise in the communications services sector and in particular in the collaboration, UC and UCaaS markets. Arma worked closely with the owners of MeetingZone to identify the best buyer and facilitate a very successful outcome for the shareholders.

-MeetingZone is a conferencing services provider with approximately 6,000 customers worldwide and international operations in Germany, Sweden and North America.

-The business has a consistent track record of profitability and grew to revenue of £22.5 million (+7.5% yoy growth), gross profit of £15.0 million (66.9% margin) and Adjusted EBITDA of £5.0 million (22.2% margin) in the 12 months ended 31 December 2017.

-LoopUp (AIM:LOOP) provides software-as-a-service solutions for remote business meetings in the United States, European Union, and internationally.

-The company also provides telephony and conferencing services.

-Headquartered in London and with offices in San Francisco, New York, Boston, Hong Kong, Barbados and Australia, LoopUp serves more than 2,000 enterprises worldwide.

-The acquisition will provide LoopUp a significant increase in scale to drive earnings through “network effect” and improving buying power with suppliers

-It is expected that that acquisition will release £2.8 million in cost synergies until Dec-2019 that will be reinvested to accelerate organic growth

-Arma Partners worked closely with the owners of MeetingZone to identify the best buyer and facilitate a very successful outcome for the shareholders which resulted in an EV/EBITDA of 12.3x based on y-o-y top line growth of 7.5%.

-Arma supported the company in the reverse takeover process with financial analysis, strategic positioning, valuation and marketing materials preparation.

-This transaction further highlights Arma Partners’ deep expertise in the communications services sector and in particular in the collaboration, UC and UCaaS markets.

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