UK set top providers Amino has just acquired Tilgin’s IPTV set top division based in Sweden, for £2.5 million ($3.8 million). The price appears to be bargain basement
Back in May Tilgin raised $9 million, with an option on a further $8 million, to invest further in home gateway technology, and its growth in this market recently has given it the chance to dump its less healthy IPTV set top operation. Tilgin has just lost one of its major set top customers (it didn’t say which) and this is thought to have forced the sale.
Amino has proved to be one of the Rolls Royce providers of IPTV set tops across Europe and Asia Pacific and it is one of the few public companies that specializes in the IPTV set top market. UK rival Pace is public and far bigger but offers set tops across the entire range of Pay TV and digital terrestrial.
Amino has amassed a pile of cash of around £19 million ($29 million) and will pay for the deal in cash, with $3.8 million up front and a maximum further payment of $1.9 million based upon the unit selling more than 175,000 set tops during 2009. This is a tiny amount considering Tilgin has sold 500,000 set tops and the business did about $32 million last year, shipping 146,000 units but losing around over $5 million. Tilgin has just 36 employees who will all move across with the business.
Amino acquired AssetHouse Technologies earlier this year, and took on board a new CEO in the form of Andrew Burke, the man who led the development of the IPTV service at BT called BT Vision.
Amino said the Tilgin deal would bring it new features such as picture-in-picture, whole-home connectivity and access to a wider range of middleware (which we assume includes the new Ericsson middleware).