Ithaca Energy Regulatory News (ITH)

27 Mar 2007 07:03

ITIS Holdings PLC27 March 2007 DISPOSAL OF NAVTRAK LIMITED ITIS Holdings plc ("ITIS"), the UK'S leading provider of traffic information,today announces the sale of NavTrak Limited ("NavTrak"), its stolen vehicletracking subsidiary, to Cobra Automotive Technologies spa ("Cobra") for aninitial payment of £2.20 million in cash (the "Disposal"). An additional cashconsideration of up to £1.38 million may become payable to ITIS over the nextfive years, subject to NavTrak meeting certain trading conditions. The Disposal will enable ITIS to focus entirely on its core traffic informationbusiness and the proceeds will provide ITIS with additional cash resources whichcan be utilised within the Group. NavTrak's unaudited revenue and pre-tax profits in the nine months to 31stDecember 2006, were £3.50 million and £82,500 respectively. As at 31st December2006, NavTrak had unaudited net liabilities of £0.96 million excludinginter-group debt. ITIS will announce an update on trading for the year ending 31st March 2007towards the end of April. Commenting on the Disposal Stuart Marks, Chief Executive of ITIS said: "We are delighted to be selling NavTrak to Cobra who plan to significantly growthe business through investment and product innovation. Whilst NavTrak is a profitable company, it has never benefited from the sameeconomies of scale of its larger competitors and has progressively become anon-core activity as ITIS has focused on its traffic information businesses.Over the last few years, NavTrak's success has come from working closely withpremium vehicle manufacturers and providing unrivalled customer service to usersof the system. Combining these skills with Cobra's deep knowledge of thismarket, extensive customer base and hardware production capabilities will createa powerful force in stolen vehicle tracking throughout Europe." Commenting on the transaction, Cobra Chief Executive Officer, Carmine Carella,said: "This strategic acquisition is consistent with our objective of becoming the PanEuropean provider of SVR services and brings the following advantages: it givesCobra a strong platform to directly provide SVR services in the important UKmarket, it brings solid relationships with prestige car manufacturers that canbe leveraged in the rest of Europe and, finally, offers potential synergiesthrough the deployment of Cobra's proprietary SVR modules and infrastructure." Contacts: Stuart Marks, Chief Executive, ITIS Holdings plc - 0161 929 5788 Ginny Pulbrook, Citigate Dewe Rogerson - 0207 638 9571 Tim Richardson, Altium - 0207 484 4102 This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange