NEW YORK, Oct. 23, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- MOKO Social
Media Limited (NASDAQ: MOKO, ASX: MKB), a provider of highly
tailored mobile social community platforms for organized groups,
announced today that the company has acquired an 80 percent stake
in the Australian-based news and entertainment website, Tagroom.com
(http://tagroom.com).
The agreement is comprised of both cash and shares in MOKO; in
addition, there will be an option-based incentive package, which
will be issued upon agreed performance targets over a two-year
timespan. The consideration to be paid for the acquisition will not
have a material impact on the financial position or issued capital
of MOKO and at the request of the vendors, it has been agreed to
keep the commercial terms of the deal confidential. Key personnel
of Tagroom will also agree to a two-year employment and management
contract with MOKO.
Tagroom is one of Australia's
fastest growing online publishers and serves as a news and
entertainment service that merges the use of social, mobile and
graphic technologies, creating a native advertising platform for
brands. Broadcasting trending content in pop-culture, Tagroom
showcases viral news, product sightings, and appealing videos on
the Internet.
Since its initial beta launch a year ago, Tagroom has generated
over 5 million monthly page views and displays strong user
engagement time, with an average user spending more than 11 minutes
on the site daily.
The companies possess complementary advertising sales models of
connecting brands and agencies aiming to engage with young
audiences. Tagroom accomplished this with through its creative
suite of native advertising offerings, and MOKO does so by
targeting the 18-24 year-old audience through REC*IT, its college
sports and fitness app in 850+colleges.
With this addition to MOKO's portfolio, the company will
commence development of a native mobile app for Tagroom and utilize
content across its portfolio of brands – heavily focusing on
cross-promotion to its key college audience through the REC*IT
product.
The acquisition of Tagroom also introduces three new members to
MOKO. CEO of MOKO Ian Rodwell states, "Nirojan Yamunarajan,
Patrick Varden and Yasmin Walter are going to be an amazing
injection of talent, style and creativity and bring enormous
insight into the world of viral media and shareable entertainment
content for the important 18-30 year old age demographic."
"I'm very pleased and excited to have Tagroom.com as part of the
MOKO portfolio of products, but even more excited to have Nirojan,
Patrick and Yasmin join our development team."
For more information contact:
Australia:
Rudi Michelson
Monsoon Communications 03 9620 3333 rudim@monsoon.com.au
About MOKO SOCIAL MEDIA Limited
MOKO identifies large user groups around common interests and
provides them with tailored mobile applications with information
relevant to that common interest. These are developed entirely by
MOKO and then distributed at no charge to these groups and their
members, in return for exclusive access and advertising rights.
MOKO's flagship mobile app is REC*IT: an application that
reaches students at over 850 colleges and universities across the
US and Canada. REC*IT provides
free access to information about campus sports and recreational
activities. Whether students are spectators or participants of
campus sports, clubs and societies, this app provides the specific
information they need, together with social functionality such as
team chat.
In May 2014 MOKO launched
Bluenationreview.com (BNR), which has grown to become one of the
most visited active political groups on Facebook in the US. A new
non-partisan user-generated political App called VOYCIT will also
soon be launched. In December 2014
MOKO will also launch a specialist running community app called
RunHaven. RunHaven.com is for US recreational runners with event,
training, dietary and other runner-relevant information.
MOKO is listed on NASDAQ (MOKO) and the Australian Securities
Exchange (MKB)
This announcement is for informational purposes only and is
neither an offer to sell nor an offer to buy any securities, or a
recommendation as to whether investors should buy or sell.
Special Note on Forward-Looking Statements
This press
release contains information that may constitute forward-looking
statements and uses forward-looking terminology such as
"anticipate" "propose" "expect" and "will," negatives of such
terms or other similar statements. You should not place undue
reliance on any forward-looking statement due to its inherent risk
and uncertainties, both general and specific. Although we believe
the assumptions on which the forward-looking statements are based
are reasonable and within the bounds of our knowledge of our
business and operations as of the date hereof, any or all of those
assumptions could prove to be inaccurate. Risk factors that could
contribute to such differences include our ability to prepare
required documents in connection with the proposed offering, the
timing of regulatory review, performance of our shares on the
Nasdaq Global Market, and the performance of the United States and global capital markets
and companies in our sector, as well as factors relating to the
performance of our business, including intense competition we face;
failure to innovate and provide products and services that are
useful to users; our ongoing need for capital for investment in new
and existing business strategies and new products, services and
technologies, including through acquisitions; our dependence on
advertising revenues; the potential for declines in our revenue
growth rate and downward pressure on our operating margin in the
future; increased regulatory scrutiny that may negatively impact
our business; legal proceedings that may result in adverse
outcomes; failure to maintain and enhance our brand; uncertainty as
to our ability to protect and enforce our intellectual property
rights; and uncertainty as to our ability to attract and retain
qualified executives and personnel. The forward-looking information
provided herein represents the Company's estimates as of the date
of the press release, and subsequent events and developments may
cause the Company's estimates to change. The Company specifically
disclaims any obligation to update the forward-looking information
in the future. Therefore, this forward-looking information should
not be relied upon as representing the Company's estimates of its
future intentions as of any date subsequent to the date of this
press release. Our plans may differ materially from information
contained in the forward-looking statements as a result of these
risk factors or others, as well as changes in plans from our board
of directors and management.
Katie Lambert
Account Executive
SpecOps Communications
212.518.7721
Katie@SpecOpsComm.com
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SOURCE MOKO Social Media Limited