Omnifone’s technology and assets to be sold to mystery company for $10 million
After a series of losses Omnifone, the digital B2B company that’s currently in administration, have accepted a sale of assets for $10 million to an unrevealed US company.
Omnifone have built their business by providing the backend for digital music services working through the cloud, like Neil Young’s Pono. After finding themselves unable to sufficiently repay their debts Omnifone entered administration in May this year, resulting in 71 layoffs.
The London-based company Omnifone are in the final process of a deal to sell all technology and assets of theirs onto an as-of-yet unknown company. The sale will include a ‘royalty bearing license’ on Omnifone’s patents but not on the patent portfolio, nor will it include patent infringement claims, debts, or investments.
The deal was revealed by Music Ally through a document published through Omnifone’s administrator Leonard Curtis. The document reads as follows:
The Joint Administrators prepared an information memorandum and populated a dataroom with information regarding the opportunity, financials, employee information and asset lists. The initial deadline for offers was set for close of business on 16 May 2016 in total, 34 parties expressed an interest before the deadline and owing to the level of interest and short timescales, the deadline was extended to close of business on 17 May 2016.
In total, 6 offers were received by the Joint Administrators. An offer of USD $10,000,000 from a US purchaser for the Technology Business and assets of the OL, excluding the patent portfolio was accepted by the Joint Administrators of OL on 18 May 2016. The proposed deal also includes a royalty bearing licence over the patents held by OL which will assist in exploiting the value in the Patent Portfolio.
The final terms of the sale are currently being finalised and it is anticipated that the sale will be completed shortly. It is currently unknown whether the customer contracts held in OGL will form part of the sale and whether part of the consideration will be allocated to the Company.
Omnifone refused to comment at the time but the mystery buyer will no doubt be revealed as the deal is sealed.