Ariadne Capital Advises Simply Zesty on its Acquisition by UTV Media plc

LONDON, March 19, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

Ariadne Capital, the London based investment and advisory firm announces another successful transaction has been completed by its M&A team acting as the sole corporate finance adviser to social media agency Simply Zesty on its sale to UTV Media plc.

Simply Zesty is a social media agency whose international client base of over 100 companies includes blue chip brands such as Sony, Vodafone, Teradata, Volkswagen Group, News International, Kaspersky Labs and ebookers.com. The company was established in 2009 and specialises in providing social media marketing services to assist businesses in creating innovative social media campaigns.

Simply Zesty's shareholders appointed the Ariadne team to advise on a sale, led by Director of M&A, Ian Findlay. UTV Media plc operates in the UK and Ireland incorporating radio, television, new media and publishing. It emerged as the favourite bidder for a combination of reasons including the opportunitiy for the founders to continue to develop Simply Zesty as part of UTV's New Media division, leveraging its position as a leading multi-media company.

The total value of the deal is €6million, €4 million of which is tied into Simply Zesty's future trading performance.

Ken Fitzpatrick, CEO of Simply Zesty said, "Ariadne was an excellent adviser, who ran a great sale process and we were delighted with the outcome."

Ian Findlay, Director of M&A at Ariadne Capital said, "We are always delighted when we complete on an acquisition that marries two strategic agendas so successfully. Simply Zesty is ideally positioned to leverage UTV's profile and reach as their social media experts, while UTV has stated that the acquisition delivers on its strategy to create a diversified multi-media business."

This is Ariadne Capital's fifth successful sale transaction in the last 18 months and the latest to follow on from the sale of BeatThatQuote.com to Google Inc where it acted as sole financial advisor.

About Ariadne Capital

Ariadne Capital is a leading investment and advisory firm specialising in technology-enabled and digital firms in the media & entertainment, financial technology, health, retail and smart-cities sectors. The Ariadne Capital Entrepreneurs Fund (ACE) backs outstanding entrepreneurs at the seed stage.  

Founded in 2000 by Julie Meyer with 60 leading entrepreneurs as founding investors, Ariadne has advised Skype (sold to Ebay), Espotting (now MIVA),  Zopa (P2P lending and borrowing) and Monitise (mobile money firm backed by VISA and listed on the London market with a market capitalisation of >£350 million).  It holds equity stakes in 20 high growth start-ups. Ariadne Capital also runs Entrepreneur Country, the community for high-growth businesses - http://www.entrepreneurcountry.com.