Poynting to acquire Aucom

·10 Jul 2013

JSE-listed Poynting Holdings has entered into an to agreement to acquire 100% of the issued share capital of African Union Communications (Aucom) for an amount of R49.5 million.

Under the agreement, shares will be settled by way of the issue of 66 million Poynting shares at an issue price of 75 cents per share.

The selllers will receive 50% of the Actual Net Profit After Tax achieved during the financial years ending 30 June 2014, 2015 and 2016 in excess of the minimum cumulative Net Profit After Tax of R38.0 million required to be achieved during such financial years.

Aucom, which is based in Pretoria, was founded in 2001 to focus on providing professional products, system integration and implementation and commissioning services to the broadcast and telecommunications market in Africa.

Aucom’s client base is evenly split between South Africa, and the rest of the African continent.

Over the past few years, Aucom has provided complete Multi-Channel Digital Free-to-Air and Pay TV Head-End Systems to a wide range of operators throughout Africa. Aucom’s services include the design, integration and support and maintenance of the aforementioned systems.

By way of rationale for the acquisition, Poynting said that over the last two years, it has collaborated with Aucom in developing digital television (DTV) opportunities.

“Excellent synergies have developed between the two parties, with Aucom – for whom terrestrial DTV solutions is the core service offering – servicing the transmission (infrastructure) business, and the Poynting DTV unit contributing its new Intellectual Property and technology which is aimed at the consumer side of the industry,” the group said.

Poynting further noted that the demand for DTV infrastructure is driven by Aucom’s requirement for Africa to transfer all current analogue TV broadcasts to digital by mid-2015.