Meltwater NV Board Recommends Company Sale

In the Netherlands, the Board of Directors of social media intelligence and analytics specialist Meltwater has voted unanimously to accept an acquisition offer from private equity vehicle MW Investment BV.

Meltwater analyses 1 billion online documents each day, enabling PR, communications and marketing professionals to make decisions and influence the world around them. In the last few years the company has made several acquisitions, including that of artificial intelligence start-up DeepReason.ai, business information crowd-sourcing company Owler, and Linkfluence, which specialised in using AI to mine social media for consumer insights.

Meltwater was founded in Oslo, Norway in 2001, and now has 2,300 employees in 50 offices across six continents. MW Investment BV is a joint bid vehicle created by global investment firm Marlin Equity Partners, and Altor, a private equity firm focused on buyouts. This offer follows a strategic review process initiated on 15th September last year, and conducted by the Board in consultation with J.P. Morgan Securities plc and DNB Markets.

If the deal goes ahead, Meltwater shareholders will receive NOK 18 per share, to be settled in cash, shares in MW Investment BV, or a combination of both - valuing Meltwater at a market capitalisation of approximately NOK 5,800m (around EUR 542m). The offer price represents a premium of 36% on the last traded price of NOK 13.25 on 18th January, and a 135% premium on the price as of 14th September 2022, the day before the announcement of the strategic review.

Meltwater CEO John Box (pictured) comments: 'We look forward to partnering with Marlin's and Altor's teams to execute on our vision and mission to be the global leader in digital and social media monitoring and intelligence. We believe this transaction will bring new opportunities to Meltwater and we look forward to working with new ownership focusing on our continued success'.

Web site: www.meltwater.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.