Yahoo Finance UK podcaster Audioboom plans £134m reverse takeover as it targets US market
Fast-growing British podcast platform Audioboom is planning a merger with rival Triton Digital in the hope of grabbing a bigger slice of the burgeoning US market.
Shares in the AIM-listed firm, whose market cap stands at around £35m, were suspended as its revealed plans to raise around £155m from a share placing, most of which will be used to fund the $185m (£134m) reverse takeover.
Audioboom hosts podcasts online and allows its users to distribute them via services such as Apple Podcasts and Spotify and make money from its network of advertisers. As well as taking a cut from ad sales, it generates revenues by charging those with fewer than 10,000 monthly listeners a $9.99 fee.
Joseph Evans, a media analyst at Enders told The Telegraph: “There’s a lot of excitement right now around the podcast advertising market and we’re expecting a lot of money to move in that direction.”
The medium’s prospects had picked up since the launch of Apple’s new analytics service, which provides more in-depth measurements of how popular podcasts are and has shown that listeners tend not to skip ads, he added.
Audioboom’s board said there were “natural synergies” with Triton, which offers similar services, and pointed to Triton's "strong penetration" of the booming US market, where 67 million people listen to a podcast each month.
Mr Evans said: “In the states people spend a lot more time driving so the audio market - everything from audiobooks to radio to podcasts is a lot more robust there so that’s a big opportunity.”
Audioboom reported a 460pc surge in revenues to £1.8m in the six months to May last year amid popularity of its podcasts, which include comedian Romesh Ranganathan’s Hip Hop Saved My Life and true crime show Undisclosed.
Triton’s chief executive Neal Schore and chief financial officer Mark Rosenbaum will take on the same roles in the newly-merged company, which will be renamed Triton Digital Group, while Audioboom boss Rob Proctor will stay on as a managing director.
Audioboom also said it had been performing “ahead of management’s expectations” in the first two months of its financial year.
