Blinkx isn’t taking no for an answer. Despite dropping its pursuit of pay-per-click ad network MIVA last month after being rebuffed, it’s now restarted the reverse-takeover bid after recording strong earnings last week. At $0.55 per share ($19 million), the new bid is far less than the $1.20 ($41 million) first offered back in August, but is still 108 percent up on MIVA’s Tuesday close of $0.26 and comes in all-cash.
MIVA’s share price has tanked by 85 percent this year and the outfit last week raised a $10 million credit facility after seeing Q3 losses widen from $3.3 million to $10.5 million. Blinkx said the buy is still attractive to shareholders “in light of issues in the MIVA business and current market conditions; however, because of MIVA’s continued loss-making performance and rapidly declining cash position, time is of the essence”. Blinkx itself last week tripled its year-on-year revenue between April and September. CEO Suranga Chandratillake today: “We trust that the MIVA board will recognise that expediency is critical to realising the benefits of this opportunity and providing stability to MIVA shareholders, customers and employees.”
He said “valuable time has been wasted whilst MIVA’s resources dwindled” and pointed to a range of MIVA metrics trending down. But Chandratillake neglected to mention Blinkx’s own year-ahead outlook for online advertising last week, which necessitated a” conservative view