iomart Acquires Web Hosting Provider Easyspace

September 8, 2004 - (HostReview.com) - iomart Group plc has announced today that it has acquired the entire issued share capital of Easyspace Limited for a net consideration of £10.5 million.

Easyspace, founded in 1997 and based in Surrey, is a provider of domain names and web hosting services with 300,000+ live domains and 140,000 customers of which 40,000 are hosting customers. In the year ended 31 st December 2003, Easyspace generated an operating profit of £1.8M from revenue of £5.0M. In the six months ended 30 June 2004 the company generated an operating profit of £1.2M from revenue of £2.8M.

The acquisition will significantly enhance the scale and profitability of iomart internet Ltd and follows the acquisitions of Internetters and NicNames, which are both now fully integrated within iomart internet.

Angus MacSween, CEO, commented: ‘The acquisition of Easyspace is a significant development for iomart and supplements the organic growth of our internet division. We are growing quickly organically and by acquisition. With a combined total of 185,000 customers, following this acquisition, we fully expect to be able to increase revenue per customer."

MacSween added: ‘We fully intend to expand our sales capability so that we can offer additional iomart products and services into the Easyspace customer base.'

The acquisition was funded through a combination of the £6.25M from shareholders, bank facilities of £3.5M and the balance from existing reserves.