CentralNic Group plc (AIM: CNIC) announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire a publishing network of revenue generating websites (“Publishing Network”) for a consideration of USD 6.5m in cash and assumed working capital liabilities (“Acquisition”) from White & Case Ltd. The Acquisition is expected to complete on or around 1 October 2021 and will be financed from available liquidity.
The acquisition will be immediately earnings accretive. On a standalone basis, the websites are expected to generate at least USD 2.0m in annualised revenue and USD 1.5m in annualised EBITDA post-acquisition. As CentralNic is already today monetising roughly half the websites’ traffic, this is expected to translate into c.USD 1.0m of additional revenue, c.USD 0.5m of reduced COGS and c.USD 1.5m of EBITDA as of financial year 2022. The Acquisition is part of a larger vertical integration strategy, providing the Group’s Online Marketing segment with more proprietary and exclusive traffic to monetise.
Ben Crawford, CEO of CentralNic, said “Exclusive access to proprietary website traffic is a pillar of our Online Marketing segment’s sustainable competitive advantage. This acquisition will give us more exclusive website traffic and will augment margins for our fast-growing Online Marketing business.”
