3rd May 2005 07:00
Eckoh Technologies PLC03 May 2005 For immediate release 3 May 2005 Eckoh Technologies plc ("Eckoh" or the "Company") Completion of the acquisition of Anglia Telecom Centres Ltd Eckoh, one of Europe's leading speech application service providers, todayannounces that it completed the acquisition of Anglia Telecom Centres Limited ("Anglia") from TTG Europe plc. on 29 April 2005, for a cash consideration of upto £10.0 million to be paid in three tranches. Initial consideration of £7.5million was paid on completion, with a further £200,000 payable on 15th May2005. The remaining balance of £2.3 million is payable on 31st May 2005, ofwhich £0.5m is to be held in escrow pending resolution of certain contingentliabilities within Anglia. Together with its nominated advisor, Evolution Securities Limited, the board iscontinuing to review strategic options for the Eckoh Group, and will makefurther announcements as appropriate. Martin Turner, Chief Executive of Eckoh, commented: "We are delighted to have successfully completed the acquisition of Anglia. Webelieve both Anglia and our wholly-owned fixed line and mobile telephonyservices subsidiary Symphony Telecom are in a position to take advantage ofexciting opportunities within the telecoms arena." For further enquiries, please contact Eckoh Technologies plc Tel: 08701 100 700Martin Turner, Chief Executive Nik Philpot, Chief Operating Officer Buchanan Communications Tel: 020 7466 5000Mark Edwards/Jeremy Garcia Notes to Editors About Eckoh Technologies: Eckoh Technologies plc designs, builds, hosts and manages Speech Solutions forlarge corporations and organisations using ASR (Advanced Speech Recognition) andIVR (Interactive Voice Response) technologies. It is a leading UK serviceprovider and infrastructure owner/operator, and intends to exploit theanticipated growth in demand for Speech Solutions across Europe. In January 2003, Eckoh signed a landmark deal to create an exclusive speechalliance with BT to provide hosted speech recognition solutions to theircorporate client base over the next 2 years. This contract was then subsequentlyextended until December 2006. In Eckoh has a call processing platform of 10,000 lines (capable of handling over500,000 calls an hour) of which over 6,000 lines incorporate speech recognitiontechnology making it the largest speech enabled call processing platform inEurope. Eckoh also operates the following businesses: • IVR - following the acquisition of Intelliplus Group plc in Sept 2003,Eckoh is one of the largest providers of managed IVR and SMS services in the UKto media clients including ITV, BBC, Trinity Mirror, Channel 4, Endemol, Celadorand EMAP. • Network Services - under the "Symphony" and "Freecom" brands, Eckohsupplies fixed line and mobile telephony services, broadband and data servicesto SMEs in the UK and Ireland. Following the acquisition of Intelliplus NetworkServices now has an SME customer base of over 13,000. In the year to 31 March 2004 Eckoh Technologies plc generated a turnover of£62.5 million and had a cash balance of £10.2m. Further information can be found at www.eckoh.com. About Anglia: Anglia was incorporated in 1987 and is a successful mobile distribution andfixed line reseller to the SME market in the UK. Anglia supplies a range ofmobile network connection packages, mobile phone handsets and accessoriesthrough a network of over 170 mobile phone dealers in the UK. The businesssupports the dealer network through providing marketing expertise, sourcing thehardware and arranging for the connection of the dealers' customers to thedesired network. To provide these connection services Anglia has directconnection agreements with five mobile phone networks, being O2, Orange,T-mobile, Hutchinson 3G and Vodafone. In addition, Anglia acts as a switchlessreseller of fixed line telecommunications services, providing such services toover 1,000 business customers. Revenues for the last audited financial yearended 31 March 2004 were £22.4 million and profit before taxation of £1.7million. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock ExchangeRelated Shares:
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