Better Capital has committed £21 million to the ‘special purpose vehicle’ that will purchase certain bank facilities and related rights owned by DigiPos. The firm will fully own and control the ‘special’ vehicle, according to a statement from the turnaround specialist.
DigiPoS, headquartered in the UK with subsidiaries across the world including the US, supplies electronic point of sale hardware and software and provides related installation services. The audited accounts for the year to 2 March 2010 show that the group achieved sales of £57 million and generated an EBITDA of £2 million. The total net assets at that year-end amounted to £10 million.
DigiPoS managing director (EMEA) Ian Patterson recently commented that the business would focus more on mobile technology in point of sales. He predicted that mobile technology could have a similar impact on retail that ATM machines had years ago.
‘It was predicted that 2011 would be the year that m-commerce achieved scale: consumers will use their mobile device on a substantial scale to engage with retailers and brands for selecting purchases and completing transactions,’ Patterson wrote in a recent article.
‘As I have said before, mobile will be a game changer for the retail sector. I believe it will have the same impact as the ATM once had.’
In other news, Better Capital has committed a further £3 million to the UK subsidiary of the Reader’s Digest magazine to fund continuing business and systems improvements.
The firm purchased the stricken publisher last year, announcing that it anticipated committing a total of £13 million to finance the buy-out and fund future growth. The original investment backed the business’s management team, who have taken 35 per cent of the equity in the new company.
In recent months, the publisher, which is currently led by its third chief executive in a year, Thierry Bouzac, has begun distributing the magazine for free at London Underground stations.
