Blinkx wants Miva again, but for less
Blinkx, a British video search compan that already tried to acquire online advertising firm Miva, announced Wednesday that it is placing another bid to acquire the company.
Only this time around, Blinkx's offer is just $0.55 per share for Miva--less than half its original offer of $1.20 per share.
"Blinkx believes the proposal is highly attractive for Miva shareholders, particularly in light of issues in the Miva business and current market conditions," a release from Blinkx reads. "Blinkx's proposal represents a 108 percent premium above the closing price of Miva common stock of $0.2643 on November 18, 2008, and a 39 percent premium over the average closing price for the 30 days prior to November 18, 2008."
Miva has faced some serious issues over the past few months. Its stock price has been negatively affected by the economic downturn and reports of online advertising slowing haven't helped. To make matters worse, the company experienced a GAAP net loss of $10.5 million during its last quarter on just $28 million in revenue, making the possible acquisition bid appealing to some shareholders who fear an even greater decline in value.
For its part, Blinkx didn't go easy on Miva's performance or its inability to fix its problems. In a statement, Blinkx executives claim "Miva has reported a decline in cash for the past four quarters, and Blinkx is concerned that valuable time has been wasted whilst Miva's resources dwindled, resulting in constraints on capital to facilitate growth. Moreover, Miva has resorted to an expensive line of credit to fund future operations, which is also likely to impact future growth prospects in exchange for short-term working capital benefits."
For all of Miva's problems, Blinkx still believes the company is worth acquiring. Blinkx executives claim that its own "matching technology" would immediately improve Miva's platform and that more search traffic from the company's ad network could be monetized at higher rates through Blinkx's technology.
Miva has yet to respond to the acquisition bid. But if Miva does accept it, Blinkx would use cash to complete the acquisition.
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
