Eckoh sells Connection Makers

17 Dec 2007 07:01

Eckoh PLC17 December 2007 17 December 2007 Eckoh sells the remaining trade and assets of its Connection Makers subsidiary for £1.75m Eckoh plc, the UK's largest provider of hosted speech recognition services,today announces the sale of the remaining trade and assets of its ConnectionMakers division. The sale has been agreed with Antiphony Limited for a cashconsideration of £1.75m of which £600,000 will be paid immediately following theeffective completion date of January 1st, 2008, with a further £1.15m being paidin equal monthly cash instalments over the following 24 months. The trade and assets sold comprised a series of chat services advertised in themedia and accessed by phone or through the internet. These services generated£1.7m of revenue in the six months to 30th September 2007 (and £2.3m in the sixmonths to 30th September 2006). The services generated £0.7m of gross profit inthe six months to 30th September 2007 (and £0.8m in the six months to 30thSeptember 2006). After direct expenses, £0.4m of profit was contributed to thecentral overhead of the Group in the six months to 30th September 2007 (and£0.4m in the six months to 30th September 2006). Whilst there will be a shortterm impact on Group profitability following the disposal, the cashconsideration will be applied in strengthening the balance sheet of theremaining business and assisting the management in growing the core SpeechSolutions division. Antiphony Limited is a subsidiary of AMV Holding Limited, which specialises inproviding mobile content and branded services to both consumers and businesses.AMV Holding Limited was recently recognised as the 4th fastest growing UKtechnology company in the 2007 Sunday Times Microsoft Tech Track. Following the agreement for the sale of the TV division announced on October1st, 2007, the sale to Antiphony Limited is the final step in the strategy ofdisposing of the Connection Makers division so as to allow Eckoh to furtherreposition and focus its business on the high margin Speech Solutions sector. For further enquiries, please contact: Eckoh plcNik Philpot, Chief Executive Officer Tel: 01442 458 300Adam Moloney, Group Finance DirectorJim Hennigan, Executive Directorwww.eckoh.com Corfin CommunicationsHarry Chathli / Neil Thapar / Ben Hunt Tel: 020 7977 0020 Seymour PierceJonathan Wright / Parimal Kumar Tel: 020 7107 8000 This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange