Company Profile

YooMedia plc is one of the fastest growing interactive entertainment companies in the UK.
Since 1997 we have been developing and launching leading B2C consumer brands in the gaming and community sectors. We also work in a B2B capacity with leading brand owners, agencies, content developers and broadcasters to design and develop their interactive content strategies.

Led by Executive Chairman Dr. Michael Sinclair and Group Managing Director Neil MacDonald, YooMedia has assembled a highly experienced management team that possesses a unique blend of skills and experience in the areas of Digital TV, Internet and mobile phone services and technology.

With main office locations in London, Exeter and Maidstone, YooMedia manages core assets including:

Over 30 office locations throughout the UK alone

State-of-the-art studio, production and post-production facilities at our Wapping location.

UK broadcast return path & bandwidth owner

Fully fledged UK Bookmaker License

Database with over 350K UK singles

SMS Engine access with international reach

Fully staffed 50 seat Customer Contact Centre in Maidstone, Kent

YooMedia Dating & Chat - Our dating subsidiary company manages the oldest and largest UK-owned dating brands including Dateline, Club Sirius and Avenues. YooMedia Dating has over 20 office locations throughout the UK and also manages YooChat, our world-leading interactive chat service found on UK digital cable on the Telewest platform (platform extensions planned for 2005).

YooMedia Gambling & Games - Combining the brands of Avago and Channel 425 (in partnership with William Hill) YooMedia is on the leading-edge of interactive fixed odds, casino and poker gambling services for digital TV, the web and 3G mobile phones. Our gaming business also manages YooPlay, the only interactive just for fun games channel found on all four Digital TV platforms in the United Kingdom.

YooMedia Enhanced Solutions (YES) - YES works with brand owners, agencies, content owners and broadcasters to clarify the options, define the strategies and deliver the interactive content that enhances consumer and audience experiences. YES customers include the BBC, Nestle, Celador, William Hill, Channel 4, ZipTV, The Cartoon Network and HR Owen.

Freeview 'to end 2004 with 5m homes'
Freeview looks set to burst through the 5m home mark by the end of the year, putting the free-to-air digital service on track to catch digital leader Sky within 12 months.

According to a MediaGuardian report, 50,000 set-top boxes are rushing off the shelves each week, with 2004 sales expected to top 3m.

David Chance, who runs paid-for Freeview add-on service Top Up TV, predicted Freeview would be in 8m homes by the end of next year.

"By December 2005, the Freeview platform could be as big as Sky, which is a very big milestone," Chance is reported to have told an industry lunch.

Chance - a director at ITV plc and a former BSkyB deputy CEO - claimed his own service was comfortably on target for 250,000 subscribers within two years of launch.

In May, Chance announced Top Up TV - which offers a package of channels including E4 and UK Gold for 7.99 per month - had gained 20,000 subscribers in its first month after launching at the end of March.

Lovelacemedia | 17.11.2004
Search news:

YooMedia in talks to create iTV giant

http://www.dtg.org.uk/news/news.php?class=countries&subclass=193&id=449


Shares in interactive television specialist YooMedia were suspended yesterday after the AIM-listed company said its discussions to acquire the Digital Interactive Television Group (DITG) had leaked.

In a statement to the City, YooMedia - headed by former Telewest and BBC interactive chief David Docherty - said the acquisition of DITG depended on its ability to raise sufficient funds as well as the approval of its shareholders.

A combined YooMedia/DITG would create an interactive powerhouse capable of rivalling BSkyB with a broad range of commercial services.

The acquisitive YooMedia last December bought Sony's interactive games channel GoPlay TV for 6.4m. Sony took a 10% stake in YooMedia under the deal.

YooMedia later purchased gaming channel Fancy a Flutter and the Dateline dating business. In July this year, YooMedia acquired mobile phone marketing company Whoosh. Founded by David Bainbridge, former deputy marketing director at Five, Whoosh uses SMS text messages in brand marketing campaigns, and in television quiz shows such as ITV's Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

DITG developed the hugely successful gaming channel Avago on digital satellite. It provides 'red button' interactive services to the BBC and Channel 4 as well as to Zip TV, an interactive advertising consortium.

http://www.yoomedia.com/financial_information.html

Yoomedia PLC has requested that trading in its ordinary shares be temporarily suspended on the AIM. This suspension is not expected to last more than 2 weeks. For more information, please contact John Murray at Powerscourt on 020 7236 5615.

iPublic

Probably best that you or mactavish call John Murray. Should mean an answer by Monday. Intriguing!

Eric

Two weeks is Wednesday. Expect trading to resume by end of November. Lot's of investors in the city, will be waiting for this news.

John Murray, is highly unlikely to offer any inforrmation, which is not in the public domain.

Come on Yoo!! Have a bet with the missus as to my portfolio total by Christmas and a good opening for this, coupled with good runs on IDS/GLD/SEO could tip it in my favour. But seriously, I'm in this for a while, looks very exciting prospects for the future. Thanks guys for good news flow, I know more about this company through this than I could ever find out myself elsewhere.
Happy Christmas to us all!!!

From a competitor's BB. Full credit to JonnyCash for research. Thanks JonnyCash.


Extremely interesting article in today's Sunday Times, Business section - "Dating agency seeks growth"

The article profiles 'Dateline', and Jim Weir's (MD) task briefly as follows:

Dateline is synonymous with dating industry - it has been around for 40 years! but it has been in decline - it needs to compete with the new internet dating agencies. Weir will nurture and promote Dateline's historic brand values of trustworthiness and sincerity.

Weir is now in charge of integrating the recent dating acquisitions - Dateline, Club Sirius and Giles, with YooMedia's interactive television, internet and mobile communications operations.
His key task is to launch a Dateline mobile-phone service that texts alerts to members when potential partners are found.

The diverse group of Yoo's dating companies will consolidated and relocated to a new head office in Maidstone.

Dateline has 25,000 members - the task is to double that number utilising all of Yoo's communications platforms. There are 2 million British adults who admit to using a dating service. The dating industry is worth #600 million!!

Dateline's new mobile service is designed to attract young members. It will be the first in Britain!! No joining fee but Dateline will text members every day with details of a potential partner whose message they can hear!!

Dateline's website has recently been upgraded - members pay #15 per month to receive a list of selected partners.

The company is building an interactive television service that has 8000 users. Members can browse profiles at a cost of 9p per minute.

Finally, in January, the company will begin looking at opportunities to take the brand into North Europe and America where the technology and concept are well established.

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This is great news and is a further example of how Docherty and his team are strategicaly developing and moving the business forward.

This is both evolution and revolution !!

This was a full page article - great publicity for both Dateline and YooMedia !!

Very soon now the City will wake up to the full potential of this little gem and the share price will respond accordingly.

Hold on to your hats!!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-528-1367542,00.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,2-528-1367297,00.html

So any idea on the possible opening price yet ?

Batteryman

That is a difficult call! First, it obviously depends on the shape of the deal: it clearly will be a mix of shares and loan capital, quite possibly with delayed conversion rights. The key point is that this will give gearing to existing shares and, quite apart from the bullish nature of the venture, considerations of cap. value implies a reasonably significant jump in price. Second, the opening price is the call of the MMs. I tend to try to read their minds as reasonable people - in contrast to the sinister and perverted tendencies ascribed to them by many! But they are in a risk situation. If they call the opening too low and get a buying spree, they are having to sell stock they haven't got, then jumping the price up until they manage to flush out sellers. In earlier posts, we were tending to look for a price around 35p. But the MM argument could put it higher.

Just for fun, here is a blue sky perspective. Suppose the value of the acquisition is clearly nearer to 100M than 50M; with existing YOO, put a value of 100M. Suppose the shares total becomes 250M. Then that is a price of 40p. Perhaps that is just the sort of fag-packet calculation that the MMs do - they must go through a lot of packets of fags! 40p wouldn't stop the buyers but it would bring in some profit-takers (not me!). There would still be a volume of buying with the price rising but not out of control (from the MM perspective). So there's my bet - 40p. Any other punters?

Eric

you are on your own , too complex for me., but as alweays your logic sounds good. Gut feeling says they wouldnt open much higher and would be cautious. So although not very analytical I would have expected an opening price similar to pre suspension , perhaps a couple of pence up....but i much prefer your analysis!

If the deal comes off okay and all parties are happy I don't think YOO will be happy with still having penny shares - at 23p - when I think their aim is to build a large company asap - with a more serious sp - maybe a couple of quid. We still don't knoiw the ramifications of the deal and what the new capital structure will be. Gearing won't be a problem as the revenue expectations and actual are very good.

This is not to say I expect the sp to open at such a high figure but that must be where YOO are aiming over the next 12-18 months. Nice if they can come back off suspension before the Xmas rush into new digital and thus benefit from pre Xmas stockmarket expectations. Good luck to us all!

What the opening price and what the price is at, say, 08:30 are two very differeent questions. It could be that the MMs open at not that far above the current price and then ramp it up very quickly in response to a spate of buying. The problem with that approach is that existing holders, you would think, would want to see what is happening before they sell. An exception might be with any sell orders held by brokers from holders to have to realise their funds 'at best'; even then, you can't see the broker rushing in at 08:01 before he has had his first cup of coffee. I've noticed that you sometimes have a few minutes to do some trading before an onslaught starts! There may just be a very good buying opportunity if one is bright and early. Can anyone think of a parallel case?

Eric

Dealers speculated that trading in Yoomedia shares will be resumed shortly. The talk was that the group, which had dealings suspended at 23p earlier this month, had raised 25m through a placing of stock at 15p via brokers Evolution.



Market Report - Torygraph 25/11

thats silenced the crowd!

Ajohngtudor Am i missing the point , isnt a lot of stock issued at 15P going to dilute the share price somewhat?Did it nee to be that cheap!Are we looking at a relaunch price sub 20P now?Or am i reading this wrong?

willfag: Well there are a number of assumptions to consider in answering your points, namely: 1. Is the report accurate (In my view the DT reports are normally spot on). 2. So why issue stock at such a low price (normally price fixed lower to gain financing if investor/s believe the risk needs the premium over current SP). 3. If that is the case then YES, the SP will open lower certainly below 20p, but depending on the detail may move higher...but I would want to see how the market reacts to this when the share relists. Hope that helps, and hence my post to this informative BB. John

thanks John. cant say my initial reaction to the YOO news is positive. have you noticed how often companies report fantastic "deals" that send the price into reverse sometimes for long periods. PXC,AMU,ERT are some that spriong to mind, which seem really good companies, done all the right things but lift off never happened.

wiifagg: In one word, YES! In fact I have to declare my hand and tell you that I myself was involved in a number of small company acquistions at one time, all with the view of growing the larger animal...and invariably it is very hard to grow shareholder value as an immediate result of the acquistion. Immediately after the deal, it takes an awful lot of effort to realise the Business Plan that prompted the deal, and during that time it is fair to say the shareholder value suffers. So in this case we will have to see the details before reaching any conclusions. But I would suggest that if you are an active dealer you would not plan to keep YOO in your protfolio, longer term is a different matter. John

Brilliant! I bought at 26p about a month ago! I just love wasting money...