CentralNic PLC has continued its acquisition programme with the purchase of Germany-based VGL, an online marketer used by many of the country’s leading e-commerce businesses.
VGL, which provides comparison content and reviews for over 150,000 product listings, is being acquired for an enterprise value of €60mln, payable in cash, and is expected to boost CentralNic’s earnings per share by double digits in 2022 before any synergy benefits.
A placing to raise £42mln (€50.4mln) at a price of 120p will be carried out today to help fund the VGL deal, with a bond issue worth €21mln also to form part of the funding.
VGL generated revenues of US$55.3mln in 2021 and underlying profits of US$10.9mln.
Ben Crawford, CentralNic’s chief executive, said: "The acquisition of VGL is a natural extension of CentralNic's online marketing business and a major step in adding content-based marketing solutions to its comprehensive suite of services.
“Millions of customers rely on the value-added content provided by VGL to make informed decisions when purchasing online, leading the world's foremost e-commerce companies to use VGL for customer acquisition."
CentralNic also announced strong growth in underlying profits in the year to December 2021.
Revenues jumped by 71% to US$411mln, with organic revenue 39% higher.
Underlying profits (adjusted EBITDA) improved to US$46.3mln from US$26.4mln, with a swing at the operating level to a profit of US$12.4mln from a loss of US$2.1mln.
CentralNic also posted a pre-tax profit of £1.6mln (loss of £11.8mln).
The company enjoyed’ a very strong 2021 across both our online presence subscription products and our privacy-safe online marketing solutions - achieving record organic growth of 39% for the year, added Crawfo4rd.
“CentralNic continues to improve its cash position, interest coverage and net debt to EBITDA ratio as it grows. As our investment levels plateau moving forward, we expect future periods to benefit from increased operational leverage”.