Today was the dawn of a new day for the stock formerly known as Falcon Acquisitions, as its bright and shiny successor Falcon Media House Ltd (LON:FAL) made its main market debut as a broadcast company focused on the OTT market.
The stock - suspended since July 25 last year after it unveiled plans for the proposed acquisition of Orbital Media and subsequent purchase of Teevee Networks Limited in November - was changing hands at around 18.5p each today.
However, the company also confirmed it had raised £4mln through a placing of shares at 25p each at the same time, hopefully indicating the potential for the stock in the near term.
WATCH: Falcon boss on relisting opportunities …
READ: Falcon Media House starts trading …
Falcon Acquisitions listed at 10p a share in January 2016 after raising £1.7mln as an acquisition vehicle, with its prospectus highlighting its intention to specialise in the OTT market.
For the uninitiated OTT stands for over-the-top, or ‘red button’ video-streaming - online videos that do not require the viewer to subscribe to a traditional TV provider for such internet-driven services as Netflix and Amazon Prime.
Falcon Media House owns patented technology that prevents ‘buffering’, one of the banes when streaming video online as the ‘wheel of death’ spoils your enjoyment of a movie or a live sporting event.
Falcon’s executive chairman, Gert Rieder, told Proactive Investors in an interview that its core technology part has developed a “superior and innovative technology for video streaming.”
But aside from the technology, Rieder said Falcon’s “three pillars” also includes a consumer content distribution arm, and a side that provides unique content to its own and other broadcast networks.
Massive market …
The executive chairman pointed out that the OTT market is a “massive market” which he said is predicted to grow at over 25% over “the next many years”.
Rieder also noted that the OTT market is forecast to grow to above US$62bn in revenue size by 2020 as consumers increasingly demand access to personalised video content and packages 'anytime, anywhere, and on any device'.
He said Falcon’s revenues are earned on multiple levels - on the software side they come from license, installation and set-up fees as well as royalties, while on the content side they come from more traditional subscriptions and advertising, together with content sponsorships.
Give that the software business has been operating for over 7 years, Rieder said the group has many ‘live customers’, including mobile operators, internet service providers, as well as having secured a deal with a leading global telecommunications firm to use their network as the firm’s ‘transport’ hub.
He concluded: “It’s all about sealing more deals, it’s all about scaling our business, because the market is growing so rapidly. And we believe with our technology, and combination of distribution, technology and content that we have a unique position to create a very good business and value for shareholders”.
Track record …
That value can be reflected in Rieder’s CV, with the Dane having already having shown himself to be an expert in the world of mobile communications with a track record of starting up and building businesses – significant operations where revenues have run into the hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
His previous role saw him cross over into cloud-based IT, which all makes a lot of sense give the potential for the OTT platform in mobile applications.
Research has shown that 60% of teenagers use tablets and smartphones to access TV, with the big mobile network operators already bundling media and music content as freebies.
A technology analyst that Proactive spoke to last year said: “Mobile operators don’t want to develop content and technology themselves.
“They want a product that can deliver video; cool content that will engage customers.”
Cool content, and cool technology – stop the buffering annoyance and Falcon Media’s investors could look forward to a happy ending.