After raising money through its stock market floatation, online sports broadcaster Perform Group remains intent on building through acquisition.
It is buying German sports portal operator Sportal, as part of its ongoing effort to build out its global audience.
Perform already bought Spox.com and Mediasports in Germany last year. Sportal.de claims 800,000 unique monthly users, and operator Sportal GmbH already provides content and services for Spiegel, Süddeutsche, RTL/sport.de, Motain and Sportal Media gruppe Switzerland
Perform did not disclose an acquisition price to the London stock Exchange. Sportal did €1.4 million in revenue in 2011, Perform said.
Perform raised £72.5 ($116.26) million in its London IPO float in April 2011, since when it has:-
- Taken full ownership of the Watch&Trade online sports betting service.
- Taken control of soccerway.com publisher, Holland’s Global Sports Media.
- Bought Germany’s Spox and Mediasports for up to €16 million.
- Offered €120 million for sports data group RunningBall
- Snapped up Turkish sports websites mackolik.com and sahadan.com.
Perform’s most game-changing deal happened prior to the float, when it bought Goal.com.
Company execs have benefitted from being public now. Last week, Perform made more shares available, so that they could reap windfalls. Co-CEO Simon Denyer made £4.1 million, co-CEO Oliver Slipper made £1.2 million, CFO David Surtees made £1.7 million.
Denyer and Slipper sold around five percent of their total holding. Denyer also gave shares worth £1 million to the charities Richard Thomas Leukaemia Fund, Great Ormond Street Hospital and WorldVision.