Iconic Labs PLC (LON:ICON) has updated on its support for a bid by Greencastle Capital to acquire Maximum Media Limited and for the assets of Joe Media Limited, the owner of the JOE social media publishing brand.
In an announcement after Friday’s close, the media technology group said, following its initial announcement of the bid on June 16, Greencastle is in “continued discussions” with Joe Media and should the bid be successful it will enter a management services agreement with Greencastle to manage the JOE assets.
The company said it will update the market when there are further developments.
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Meanwhile, Iconic said its planned acquisition of Social Alchemist, which was planned to complete in the first quarter of 2020, has been delayed by the coronavirus pandemic and that it is in talks to renegotiate the terms of the agreement to provide “maximum flexibility”.
The group said it is now in final negotiations to complete an agreement for the licence and management of the distribution services of Social Alchemist, and will no longer need to acquire the business, although the agreement will result in the same economic benefit that an acquisition would have provided without the need to deploy capital.
Iconic added that a deal announced in July 2019 worth up to £1mln to provide marketing and consultancy services has not yet been completed and cash constraints of the client partly caused by the pandemic meant the deal was “likely to be materially different than originally agreed”.
Elsewhere, the firm said Medium Channel Media Limited (MCM), in which it owns a 24% stake, has said its agreement to acquire student culture publisher The Tab has lapsed due to the conditions of the agreement having not been met.
Iconic said MCM is looking at other potential opportunities, although it added that a £150,000 loan provided to MCM had been used in connection with the Tab acquisition and that it has impaired the treatment of the loan to reflect its view that a recovery is “unlikely”.
Looking to the coronavirus pandemic, the company said it has seen a number of contracts delayed or cancelled, while an increase in consumptions across its properties had been offset by a decline in advertising rates across the industry.
However, Iconic said it has begun to sign contracts again and that it has also chosen to accelerate its ability to deliver services across “a wider number of revenue streams”.
The company also said it will “continue to look at other acquisition opportunities and strategic partnerships in the future”, adding that it is also investigating potential opportunities with Greencastle Capital.
Iconic Labs shares were 25.3% lower at 0.01p in late-morning trading on Monday.
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