KVH Industries, Inc. (Nasdaq:KVHI) today announced that it has
acquired Headland Media Limited, a media and entertainment services
company. Headland Media is a leading provider of commercially
licensed news, sports, movies, and music content that they sell in
the maritime, hotel, and retail markets.
"The acquisition of Headland Media supports our strategic vision
of extending our maritime broadband service to also include
delivering premium content to vessels," said Martin Kits van
Heyningen, KVH's chief executive officer. "We've captured a leading
market share in the maritime VSAT market for one-to-one
connectivity, and are now rolling out a new, highly efficient,
low-cost multicasting capability that we believe will create
significant growth opportunities for Headland Media's content by
eliminating the time and cost of physically delivering DVDs 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."
With extensive experience in the licensed content business,
UK-based Headland Media has 115 employees, and offices in the UK,
Europe, the United States, India and the Philippines. Headland
Media has established relationships with content providers and a
customer base of 9,600 vessels, 1,700 hotels, and 1,700 retail
outlets receiving their various services. In 2012, Headland Media
generated revenue of $12.2 million, of which approximately 85% was
derived from annual subscription-based services. During that same
period, the gross profit margin was almost 78%. Speaking of the
acquisition and the opportunities ahead, Mark Woodhead, CEO of
Headland Media, remarked, "We're excited to be part of the KVH
family and to work with our new colleagues in developing the next
generation of onboard entertainment services for ships at sea. The
trend towards digital delivery of movies, news, and sports clips
has been apparent to us for several years. When we discussed KVH's
capabilities, there just seemed to be a natural fit between their
maritime VSAT service and our news, sports, and entertainment
content."
Headland Media provides television shows, premium movies,
sports, news channels, and music for exhibition in commercial
locations, which include ships at sea. KVH's capabilities to
multicast data in the background during network idle times, and
cache, manage, and distribute data onboard vessels using its
Integrated CommBox Modem (ICM) will serve as key enabling
technology for Headland Media's services. Headland Media's broad
content range, which KVH intends to deliver over the mini-VSAT
Broadband network, will also enable KVH to bring Internet Protocol
television (IPTV) technology to the maritime market.
Mr. Kits van Heyningen concluded, "We see this acquisition as a
great start to KVH's new initiative to bring our customers the same
high-quality multimedia content they enjoy onshore, but have
usually been unable to receive over their maritime satellite
service because of either prohibitively high costs or protocol
blocking associated with service providers' fair use
policies. We believe that KVH's capabilities will help
Headland Media grow sales of its services, and that having news,
sports, and premium movies available on our mini-VSAT Broadband
network will help our sales efforts as well."
The $24.0 million transaction is anticipated to be accretive to
KVH earnings per share in 2013. The company financed the
transaction from its cash on hand and proceeds from its existing
credit facility.
Visit www.minivsat.com for more information about KVH's
mini-VSAT Broadband satellite communications solution and
www.headlandmedia.com for more details regarding Headland
Media.
KVH is holding a conference call live at 10:30 a.m. EDT today to
discuss this announcement. To listen, call phone number +1
719-325-2494 (passcode 3965100) or you may access the call through
the company's website at investors.kvh.com. Listeners are
welcome to submit questions pertaining to this announcement to
ir@kvh.com. The audio archive and an MP3 podcast will also be
available on the company website within three hours of the
completion of the call.
About KVH Industries, Inc.
KVH Industries is a leading manufacturer of solutions that
provide global high-speed Internet, television and voice services
via satellite to mobile users at sea, on land, and in the air.
KVH is also a premier manufacturer of high performance
sensors and integrated inertial systems for defense and commercial
guidance and stabilization applications. The company is based in
Middletown, RI, with facilities in Illinois, Denmark, Norway,
Singapore, and Japan.
This press release contains forward-looking statements that
involve risks and uncertainties. For example, forward-looking
statements include statements regarding the anticipated accretive
impact of the acquisition, plans for Headland Media's existing
services, the introduction of new services, including delivering
Headland Media's content and IPTV via KVH's mini-VSAT Broadband
network, and the anticipated cost of, and ability to offer, such
services. The actual results we achieve could differ
materially from the statements made in this press
release. Factors that might cause these differences include,
but are not limited to: the risk that customers will not promptly
transition to digital content delivery, the potential loss of key
customers or suppliers, competitive risks arising from entry into a
new market, costs and risks associated with the integration of the
operations of Headland Media, including expansion of internal
control over financial reporting to numerous acquired entities in
various jurisdictions, costs and risks associated with managing
operations in jurisdictions that are new to KVH, execution risks
associated with the content distribution business, which is a new
business model for KVH, potential diversion of management
attention, the ongoing need to renew and extend content licenses
with a substantial number of content providers, the challenges of
offering digital content in multiple legal jurisdictions, the
potential need for additional content licenses for new services,
potential cost increases impacting anticipated accretiveness,
including borrowing costs, potential unknown acquired liabilities,
unanticipated legal or contractual impediments, the potential loss
of key hired personnel, and restrictions on the repatriation of
earnings. Other risk factors are discussed in detail in our
most recent Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange
Commission on May 9, 2013. Copies are available through our
Investor Relations department and website,
http://investors.kvh.com. We do not assume any obligation to update
our forward-looking statements to reflect new information and
developments.
KVH Industries, Inc., has used, registered, or applied to
register its trademarks in the USA and other countries around the
world, including the following marks: KVH, KVH logo, Azimuth,
TracVision, TracPhone, Tri-Americas, CommBox, TACNAV, Sailcomp,
mini-VSAT Broadband and the mini-VSAT Broadband logo, E•Core, and
the banded, dome-shaped housing of its satellite
antennas. Other trademarks are the property of their
respective companies.
CONTACT: KVH Industries, Inc.
Peter Rendall
+1 401-847-3327
prendall@kvh.com
FTI Consulting
Christine Mohrmann
+1 212-850-5600
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