The Dubber Corp Ltd (ASX: DUB) share price has returned from its trading halt and is charging higher.
At the time of writing, the leading unified call recording platform provider's shares are up 8.5% to $1.88.
Why was the Dubber share price in a trading halt?
Dubber requested a trading halt on Monday so that it could prepare an announcement relating to a major new acquisition.
This afternoon the company revealed that it has acquired UK-based call recording and Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance solutions provider, Speik.
Management notes that the acquisition furthers Dubber's vision of dubbing the world's networks and communications solutions to put artificial intelligence on every phone, transforming voice data into a source of value for enterprises and governments globally.
According to the release, Speik was formed in 2019 through a merger of Aeriandi and Voxygen. The latter had been supplying a hardware-based recording platform to Telefonica UK (also known as O2), one of the UK's leading networks. Whereas Aeriandi had been providing PCI compliance solutions in conjunction with leading UK service providers including Vodafone and Gamma.
Speik has annual revenue of ~7 million pounds (~A$12.4 million) and is growing month-on-month. It is profitable, which management expects to enhance the company's consolidated bottom line.
What will this cost Dubber?
The aggregate consideration is approximately 21.5 million pounds (A$38 million). This is payable in cash and/or shares, as elected by the selling shareholders, with a 5% reduction if taken in cash.
The initial consideration is 10.1 million pounds (A$17.9 million) and was paid at completion, with 7.9 million pounds paid in cash and loan notes. The balance will be satisfied by way of the issue of 2,441,533 Dubber shares at a deemed issued price of A$1.60.
An earn-out consideration is payable in mid-2022 subject to the achievement of an agreed EBITDA target, with the amount payable determined as multiples of specified revenue streams across the Speik business.
Management commentary.
Dubber's CEO, Steve McGovern, appeared delighted with the acquisition. He said:
"Dubber's acquisition of Speik is fundamentally accretive on all levels. Speik brings to Dubber a strong footprint in the leading UK-based mobile network provider, world-class technology resources, and a growing base of subscribers."
"The Dubber product suite has a capability to expand Speik's revenue opportunities with O2 – and other service providers – from its current enterprise focus into the larger addressable markets of mobile SME and across unified communications (UC) and Microsoft Teams services with Unified Call Recording."
"We believe that Dubber can substantially accelerate growth and adoption in that and other key UK-based relationships while using Speik's PCI services to drive additional revenues with our service provider partners. We welcome the Speik team to our growing Dubber family and look forward to serving our mutual customers like never before."
