Monstermob takeover approved

News

Stuart O'Brien Feb 23 2007, 11:30am

Monstermob shareholders this morning voted in favour of Zed's proposal to take a 52 per cent stake in the company.

A statement issued to the London Stock Exchange read: "The boards of Monstermob Group and LaNetro Zed are pleased to announce today the passing of the resolutions by Monstermob shareholders at today's extraordinary general meeting to approve the subscription by Zed for 68,000,000 new ordinary shares in Monstermob for an aggregate amount of £34,000,000."

Shares in D2C giant Monstermob fell by 10 per cent as news filtered through the markets.

The decision by Monstermob to accept the bid from Spain-based Zed ends weeks of speculation that saw China's Linktone propose a $78 million counter-offer should this morning's deal not have materialised.

The completion of the deal marks the start of a major shake up of the D2C mobile content sector, which is now entering a second phase of development following regulatory upheaval in 2005 and 2006.

Zed itself has embraced Web 2.0 for a $65 million revamp of its mobile and PC content offering. The new look signals a move into a connected cross-platform environment as opposed to the one-off mobile content downloads on which its business has been built to date, though the latter will continue to play a core role in the business.

The services will also be made available to existing Monstermob customers, with the Zed community now stretching across 31 countries.