Placing & Trading Update

22 Mar 2007 16:35

Messaging International Plc22 March 2007 Messaging International Plc / Market: AIM / Epic: MES / Sector: Technology 22 March 2007 Messaging International Plc ('Messaging International' or 'the Company') Trading Update & Placing Overview •Placing of 120 million New Ordinary Shares at 0.75p per share to raise £900,000 (gross) •Expanded agreement with Sprint Nextel, a leading US wireless operator, to add Spanish support to Text to Landline application •Initiated direct web marketing to end users •Signed contract with the largest wireless operator in Israel - now has contracts with all four Israeli wireless operators •Enhanced agreements with blue-chip corporates Bank Leumi, Isracard and Chinese ASP •Expanded presence in Spain with two new contracts Messaging International Plc, the AIM traded provider of innovative messagingservices, has raised £900,000 through a placing of 120 million New OrdinaryShares at 0.75p per share. The Company's major shareholder, Prideway Holdingsand RTI and associates are together subscribing for 40,000,000 New OrdinaryShares. The money raised will be used for general working capital. Additionally, the Company is pleased to provide an update on its recent tradingperformance. It has formed new partnerships, expanded its service offering withexisting clients, signed up new customers and developed a new direct marketingwebsite. • The Company has expanded its existing relationship with Sprint Nextel(NYSE: S), the third largest wireless operator in the US. Under the agreement,Sprint Nextel will add Messaging International's Spanish feature to its popularText to Landline application, which allows customers to compose text messagesthat are converted into voice messages and delivered to landline phones. SprintNextel customers will be able to create a text message in Spanish and have itdelivered as a Spanish voice message to a landline recipient. All the responsemessages and recordings are also all in Spanish. Since it commenced at thebeginning of 2006, the monthly revenues from the Sprint Nextel contract havemore than doubled. • The Company is initiating direct web marketing to end users. To thisend it has developed and launched a new website, which enables users to buy 'payas you go' services for its popular PC to Mobile products. The Company'sstrategic plan is to enable end users to have the option to pay for theseservices through their own operator. • The Company has signed a contract with the largest operator in Israeland now has contracts with all four Israeli wireless operators for various PC toMobile products. Pelephone has already launched the Company's PC to Mobileservice during 2006 and the other three operators are expected to launch similarservices in the first half of the year. • The Company has expanded its contract with Rogers, a Tier 1 Canadianwireless operator, through the launch of its Mail Plug-in application, whichallows subscribers to compose and send text messages directly from withinMicrosoft Outlook(R) and Outlook Express(R). Outlook users can also haveimportant filtered email and calendar reminders sent directly to their mobilephone as text messages. It can be downloaded from http://www.shoprogers.com/business/wireless/plans_services/smsoutlookplugin.asp • Messaging International has received purchase orders from existingclients including Bank Leumi, Isracard and a leading Application ServiceProvider in China (announced in February 2006), which have all addedenhancements to their existing service. • The Company is expanding its presence in Spain through its partner,Dominion. It has received orders for approximately $300,000 from two publicsector agencies for its Mail Plug-in and Multi Alert products. Messaging International CEO, Guy Levit, said, "We remain focused on developingthe services offered to current customers, signing new clients and strengtheningrelationships with our partners worldwide. Furthermore, we continue to expandour product offering, such as adding the Spanish feature. We hope that this willhelp Sprint Nextel capture the Spanish speaking market in the US and grow theapplication penetration even further." As part of the placing, the Company has entered into a conditional put and calloption agreement ("the Option") with Pacific Continental Securities (UK) Ltd("PacCon"), whereby PacCon will invest a further £500,000, by way of asubscription of new ordinary shares of 0.5 pence per share, at the Company's orits own request at a subscription price per new ordinary share which is a 50%discount to the middle market price of an ordinary share for the previous 20business days. The exercise period commences on 14 August 2007 and continues forsix months thereafter. The Option is conditional upon completion of the placingand the shareholders of the Company giving to the directors of the Company, onor before 30 June 2007, at an extraordinary general meeting authority to allotthe new ordinary shares pursuant to the Option in accordance with the CompaniesAct 1985. On admission of the 120,000,000 New Ordinary Shares to trading on the AIMmarket, the following Directors holdings in ordinary shares in the Company willbe: New ordinary Shares held on % of enlarged Shares Admission issued share capital Horacio Furman (1) 16,533,333 70,704,564 30.04% Geoffrey Simmonds (2) - 200 0% David Rubner (3) 800,000 1,088,512 0.46% (1) Horacio Furman's holding consists of 34,492,934 ordinary shares held byPrideway Holdings Ltd (a company of which he is chairman and a majorshareholder), 19,678,297 ordinary shares held by Prideway II LLP (a limitedpartnership of which he is a limited partner) and the balance of 16,533,333ordinary shares held in his own name. (2) Geoffrey Simmonds holds these shares jointly with Reverse Take-OverInvestments plc and is a minority shareholder and a director of WestsideAcquisitions plc and a director of RTI plc, which has an interest in 23,000,000ordinary shares. (3) David Rubner's holding is held through Rubner Technology Ventures Ltd, acompany of which he is a director and a major shareholder. Application has been made for the admission of the New Ordinary Shares totrading on the AIM market. The New Ordinary Shares will rank pari passu with theexisting ordinary shares of 0.5p each in the Company and dealings in the NewOrdinary Shares are expected to commence on Friday 23 March 2007. * * ENDS * * For further information visit www.telemessage.com or contact Guy Levit Messaging International Plc Tel: + 972 3 922 5252 Isabel Crossley St Brides Media & Finance Ltd Tel: +44 (0) 20 7242 4477 Mark Percy Seymour Pierce limited Tel: +44 (0) 20 7107 8032 Messaging International Plc Messaging International Plc joined AIM in August 2005 with the objective ofbecoming a leading provider in the rapidly growing multimedia messaging market.Its 100% owned subsidiary, TeleMessage Ltd (www.telemessage.com), providescross-platform media messaging management systems and applications. These aredesigned to enable PC, browser, mobile phone and wireline telephone users tosend, receive and manage voice messages, email, text, IM and MMS across variousmedia platforms. It supports multiple languages, text to speech conversion,e-mail notification, unlimited text length, and direct reply to textcapabilities, all illustrating the uniqueness of the service. The Company has anumber of contracts with major blue chip companies including Rogers Wireless,the largest wireless provider in Canada. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange