How the Helio Buyout Process Went: Virgin Mobile Wanted To Bring In A Retail And Financial Investor
Virgin Mobile USA bought Helio earlier this year for a paltry $39 million in equity and getting $50 million in investment from British parent Virgin Group and SK Telecom. That, we reported on in detail at that time. Now finally, VMUSA has filed details of how the sale process started and the proceedings during the negotiations, in an SEC proxy filing earlier today.
The process started in January this year, when SKT and *Earthlink*, then joint owner of Helio, contacted Virgin Mobile USA. As the talks progressed, Virgin wanted to bring in one of its major retail partners as an investors, and though it does not disclose the name of the retail partner it considered, it is one of Best Buy, RadioShack, Target, or *Wal-Mart*, and my guess is Best Buy, only because it is known for investing in such ventures, as it did with Amp’d Mobile. It also wanted to bring in a financial investor. Those plans fell by the wayside during the talks, and the final structure was hammered out and announced on June 27th. More details and the filing extract on MocoNews.
Related StoriesPosted In: Mobile, Money, M&A & Venture Capital, Mergers & Acquisitions, helio, virgin mobile usa
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Comments (2)
Dec 11, 2008 11:16 PM
The buy out was a good move but just came in at the wrong time, banks have too much blood on their hands already, recession is slowing down everyone.
Jan 27, 2009 7:29 PM
I think the most interesting part of the process was swapping out i-banks (BS for Deutsche). How often do you see that? I wonder if Bear still managed a fee . . .
May 11, 2009 7:16 AM
I wonder what was the final result of this merge.