REG - Zoo Digital Group - ZOO Digital launches ZOO India

Zoo DigitalAnnouncement

21/03/2022 07:15

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RNS Number : 3646F  Zoo Digital Group PLC  21 March 2022

21 March 2022

 

ZOO DIGITAL GROUP PLC

("ZOO", the "Group" or the "Company")

 

ZOO Digital launches ZOO India with the acquisition of Vista India

 

Acquisition of Mumbai-based localisation services provider expands ZOO's South
Asia operations

 

ZOO Digital Group plc (AIM: ZOO), the leading provider of end-to-end,
cloud-based localisation and media services to the global entertainment
industry, today announces the expansion of its South Asia operations with the
launch of ZOO India.

 

The Company has acquired the award-winning media services and localisation
businesses of Vista India Digitek Private Limited and Vista Tanweer Studios
Private Limited (together referred to as "Vista"), based in Mumbai, together
with a 35% investment in the aggregation services business Vista India Digital
Media Inc., which is based in California, for a total consideration of $6.0m
of which $3.1m is payable in cash on completion, $1m is being settled by way
of the issue of 636,100 new ordinary shares of £0.01 each in the capital of
ZOO on completion ("Consideration Shares") and the balance of $1.9m is to be
paid as deferred consideration, with $1.3m payable 12 months from completion,
$0.3m payable 24 months from completion and $0.3m payable 36 months from
completion.

 

Established in 2012, Vista is a leading force in media localisation, media
services and digital distribution for Indian and foreign language content.
Vista provides end-to-end services across eight Indian languages and English,
including dubbing, subtitling, artwork and metadata localisation services and
a range of other media services. It is an Apple approved aggregator and
encoding house, a Netflix Preferred Fulfilment Partner (NPFP) and a Netflix
Preferred Creative Agency. In both 2019 and 2020, Vista India was awarded the
accolade of NPFP of the Year for the Asia-Pacific region. For the 12 months
ended 31 March 2021, $14k loss before tax was attributable to Vista. The
aggregation business, which acquires the rights to Indian TV and Film assets
for exploitation internationally, made a profit of $263k for the year ended 31
December 2020.

 

The acquisition and launch of ZOO India illustrate ZOO's commitment to expand
its end-to-end service offering in this growing market. With India's OTT
(Over-The-Top) revenue predicted to grow from $1.9bn in 2021 to around $4.5bn
by 2026, and the country's SVOD (Subscription Video on Demand) subscribers
expected to more than double by 2026 to 224 million, India is an important
strategic focus for ZOO and its clients.

 

Vista has been a trusted vendor partner to ZOO since 2016 and its
award-winning localisation teams already work within ZOO's cloud-based
technology ecosystem. The all-encompassing approach supports unrestricted
creativity while enforcing high standards of production quality, workflow
efficiency and content security across the entire global group.

 

Total voting rights

 

Application has been made to the London Stock Exchange for admission of
securities in respect of the Consideration Shares totalling 636,100 ordinary
shares of £0.01 each in the share capital of the Company. It is expected that
admission of the Consideration Shares to trading on AIM will become effective
at 8.00 a.m. on 28 March 2022 ("Admission").

 

Following Admission, the total number of ordinary shares and voting rights in
the Company will be 88,335,079. The Company does not hold any shares in
treasury.

 

The above figure may be used by shareholders in the Company as the denominator
for the calculations by which they will determine if they are required to
notify their interest in, or a change to their interest in, the share capital
of the Company under the FCA's Disclosure and Transparency Rules.

 

Stuart Green, Chief Executive Officer of ZOO Digital, commented:

 

"We are delighted to welcome Vista India and its teams to ZOO Digital Group.
India has a vibrant film and TV industry, and the rapid adoption of streaming
makes it a high growth and strategic market for ZOO's clients. Following a
year of unprecedented growth for both ZOO and Vista, this is the next step to
further expand both companies' servicing capacity to meet the needs of local
and international content creators in 2022 and beyond."

 

Rajiv Raghunathan, Managing Director, ZOO India / Vista said:

 

"At Vista, our mission has always been to help content creators reach the
largest audience possible. By joining ZOO Digital Group and deploying their
world class technologies, we have even more opportunities to do this, both for
international clients bringing content to Indian streaming services, and for
local content creators to take their TV shows and movies to a global,
multi-language audience.

 

"By having ready access to the technology and global talent pool of ZOO
Digital, the partnership gives Vista a tremendous advantage in this
marketplace, to immediately manage large volumes of subtitling and dubbing
projects, across multiple languages."

 

Suri Gopalan, Founder of Vista, added:

 

"The world is seeing an unprecedented consumption of content that is crossing
borders. This partnership will provide a flow of Indian content to the rest of
the world and international content into India."

 

The acquisition of Vista sees ZOO Digital Group continue its global expansion.
This follows the launch of ZOO Turkey in November 2021 after a strategic
investment in Istanbul-based ARES Media, and more recently the launch of ZOO
Korea following an investment in Seoul-based media localisation specialist,
WhatSub Pro. Further announcements are expected in 2022 as part of ZOO's
global growth initiative.

For further information:

 

 ZOO Digital Group plc            +44 (0)114 241 3700
 Stuart Green
 Phillip Blundell

 Stifel                           +44 (0)20 7710 7600
 Fred Walsh / Tom Marsh

 Instinctif Partners              +44 (0)20 7457 2020
 Matthew Smallwood / Joe Quinlan  zoo@instinctif.com

 

 

About ZOO Digital Group plc:

 

ZOO Digital supports major Hollywood studios and streaming services to
globalise their content and reach audiences everywhere, by providing
world-leading, technology-enabled localisation and media services.

 

Founded in 2001, ZOO Digital operates from hubs in Los Angeles, London, Dubai,
Istanbul, Seoul and Mumbai with a development and production centre in
Sheffield, UK. The company is targeting $100m sales in the medium term.

 

The Group provides media services through its platforms that include: ZOOsubs,
ZOOdubs, ZOOstudio. Its full-service proposition delivers the end-to-end
services required to prepare both original and catalogue content for digital
distribution; these services include dubbing, subtitling & captioning,
metadata creation & localisation, artwork localisation and media
processing. Alongside this offering, ZOO also provides its customers with
management platforms and strategic solutions to support their own internal
globalisation operations.

 

ZOO is a go-to service partner for media businesses looking to globalise their
content across different territories, languages and distribution platforms.
Using its innovative technology-enabled approach, ZOO helps its customers to
reduce time to market, lower costs and deliver high quality products to their
global audiences. The business has frameworks in place with all major
Hollywood studios and streaming services. Its customers include Disney,
NBCUniversal, HBO and ViacomCBS.

 

ZOO's competitive advantage arises from three interlinking factors - the
leading role it has played in the digital transformation of its sector; the
world class proprietary platforms that it develops to enable this
transformation; and the global supply chain of thousands of freelancers,
working collaboratively in ZOO's platforms, which delivers services that scale
easily to meet demand. These factors combine to make ZOO uniquely geared to
capitalise on new market opportunities in a fast-paced and constantly evolving
industry.

 

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