LivePerson to Acquire Kasamba, Inc.
LivePerson Expands Into the Consumer Market by Acquiring One of the World's Largest Communities of Chat-Based Paid Experts
Teleconference to Be Held On Tuesday, June 26 at 9:00 a.m. EDT
NEW YORK, June 25 /-- LivePerson, Inc. (NASDAQ:LPSN), a provider of online conversion solutions, today announced an agreement to acquire Israel-based Kasamba, Inc., a leader in live expert advice delivered online via real-time chat to consumers. Under the terms of the agreement, LivePerson will acquire the outstanding common stock of Kasamba and assume all of its outstanding options for total consideration of approximately $40 million, comprised of $9 million in cash and approximately $31 million in stock.
The acquisition of Kasamba, combined with the recently announced launch of LivePersonalShoppers.com, will accelerate LivePerson's expansion into the direct-to-consumer market. This purchase underscores LivePerson's commitment to expand its global presence by offering a personalized, human experience to the millions of consumers who are looking for live help online and want expert advice in real time.
Kasamba's thousands of experts sell their knowledge via real-time chat to the more than 1 million monthly visitors to Kasamba.com. Kasamba has experts in dozens of categories, including personal counseling and coaching, computer services, education and tutoring, health, business and finance. Currently, Kasamba's business model is based on receiving a portion of the gross expert fees. In 2006, the experts generated approximately $20 million in gross fees of which Kasamba received approximately $7 million, an increase from approximately $8.4 million in gross fees and approximately $2.7 million in net revenue to Kasamba in 2005.
LivePerson currently provides live chat and customer service software to companies such as EarthLink, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Qwest, Verizon, Orbitz and The Home Depot, and supports more than 50 million consumer chat interactions annually across its existing customer base. LivePerson's presence in the direct-to-consumer market will solidify its position as a leading provider of real-time solutions for both businesses and consumers.
Kasamba offers a turnkey solution for professionals offering expert advice online in real time via chat. Experts provide their services via chat for a negotiated fee to thousands of consumers each month. Kasamba's commission- based business model generates revenue from each paid consumer-to-expert interaction.
"This acquisition represents our commitment to build a direct to consumer service to positively impact our entire business," said LivePerson CEO Robert LoCascio. "By directly empowering the consumer to drive demand for real-time chat, we hope to increase the rate of adoption of our services. We believe this will create a unique value proposition for our customers and further differentiate us from our competition."
"Being part of LivePerson will enable us to provide a more complete offering of real-time services to our growing customer base and to expand into new market segments. We share the LivePerson vision of consumer-oriented services and look forward to expanding our opportunity together," said Inon Axel, Kasamba's CEO.
Mr. Axel and Kasamba President Arthur Fuhrer will continue in management roles following the completion of the acquisition.
OTHER TERMS
The transaction is expected to close in approximately 90 days and is subject to standard closing conditions for similar transactions. Upon the closing of the transaction, LivePerson will issue shares of its common stock to Kasamba's stockholders in a private placement. Such shares will be registered for resale on a Registration Statement on Form S-3 shortly after the transaction closes.
EXPECTATIONS
LivePerson expects the following incremental financial impact to result upon closing the transaction, currently anticipated in early October 2007:
o An increase in monthly revenue of approximately $1 million upon
closing.
o A decrease in EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and
amortization) of $0.01 per share in the fourth quarter of 2007, due
primarily to the impact of additional share issuances related to the
anticipated transaction.
o A decrease in EPS due primarily to deal-related amortization and
additional stock compensation expense of $0.01-$0.02 in the fourth
quarter of 2007.
TELECONFERENCE INFORMATION
A conference call will be held on Tuesday, June 26 at 9:00 a.m. ET with LivePerson management to discuss the transaction. To participate, please call (877) 507-3684 before 9:00 AM. International callers please dial (706) 634- 9559. Please reference the conference ID 4881240.
ABOUT LIVEPERSON
LivePerson (NASDAQ:LPSN) is a provider of online conversion solutions for real-time sales and customer service. Our hosted software enables companies to identify and proactively engage online visitors-increasing sales, satisfaction and loyalty while reducing service costs. Combining web-interaction technology (chat, email, voice and a self-service knowledgebase) with a deep understanding of consumer behavior and industry best practices, LivePerson's Timpani(TM) platform engages the right customer, at the right time, with the right communications channel. This Engagement Marketing platform creates more relevant, compelling and personalized experiences-converting traffic into revenues, and facilitating real-time sales and customer service. More than 5,000 companies, including EarthLink, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Qwest and Verizon, rely on LivePerson to help maximize the return on their marketing and e-commerce investments. LivePerson is headquartered in New York City.
ABOUT KASAMBA
Founded in 1999 by Inon Axel, a physicist, and Arthur Fuhrer, a physician, Kasamba, Inc. is an Israel-based, privately held company, whose last investment round was led by JAL Ventures. Kasamba is a provider of online expert advice, with thousands of registered experts and hundreds of thousands of monthly site visitors.
FCMN Contact: mgoodwin@liveperson.com
Source: LivePerson
CONTACT: Kevin Kohn, EVP of LivePerson, +1-212-609-4240
Web site: http://www.liveperson.com/
http://www.livepersonalshoppers.com/
