Maritime VSAT specialist KVH Industries has acquired Headland Media Limited, a UK-based media and entertainment services company, for approximately US$24m.
Explaining the strategy behind the purchase, Martin Kits van Heyningen, KVH’s chief executive…
Maritime VSAT specialist KVH Industries has acquired Headland Media Limited, a UK-based media and entertainment services company, for approximately US$24m.
Explaining the strategy behind the purchase, Martin Kits van Heyningen, KVH’s chief executive officer, commented: “The acquisition of Headland Media supports our strategic vision of extending our maritime broadband service to also include delivering premium content to vessels.
“For KVH’s mini-VSAT Broadband service, Headland Media’s premium content offers us a great opportunity to create exciting new services that will help our customers keep their crews happy, and in the process help us differentiate our service and increase our ARPUs.”
Headland Media provides commercially licensed news, sports, movies, and music content to the maritime, hotel, and retail markets. The company has a customer base of 9,600 vessels, 1,700 hotels, and 1,700 retail outlets and generated FY2012 revenue of US$12.2m, with a 78% gross profit margin. To that end, the purchase price was 2.52 times FY2012 gross profit.
KVH stated that it funded the transaction through cash-on-hand as well as proceeds from its existing credit facility.
