Barco got dZine for 8M Euro, plus …

July 22, 2010 by Dave Haynes

Denis at OOH-TV dug up the financials on the Barco acquisition of another Belgian company, software maker dZine.

In its Q2 2010 financial report, Barco gave more details with regards to its recent dZine acquisition. As stated in the document: “Beginning July 2010 Barco closed the acquisition of 100% of the shares of the Belgium-based digital signage solutions company dZine NV. The total transaction cost paid at closing amounts to 8 million euro.

The contract further provides for an additional earnout based on the net assets per 31 December 2010 of maximum 2 million euro and an additional earnout based on EBITDA totaling maximum 5 million euro over the next four years.”

In USD, that amounts to $10.3M and a further potential earnout of as much as $9M.

DailyDOOH has had excellent coverage of this transaction, which is interesting for several reasons.

The little heard-of company has a large staff and, it says, 100,000 units in the field. That would easily make it among the most successful software firms in this sector and utterly dwarves the installed base of many companies that get far more ink.

It’s intriguing because the company says it was doing really well, running in the black and debt-free – yet it sold for only 1 to 1.5 of their revnue (which is low).

Finally, it’s interesting because we know of several companies that have quietly been trying to sell or at minimum bring in new investment to either expand or keep the lights on. They’re no doubt watching this with mixed thoughts: 1 – good, there is some M&A activity;  B – ooooh, dZine was in good shape and only sold for that multiple.