Jamba Acquired by Versign

As I just found out via this post on Mobitopia, Versign just acquired Jamba, the German wireless content service. They did so for $273 Million, $177.45 million of those in cash. Jamba has about 300 full-time staff and will contribute roughly $70 million in revenues in the second half of 2004 to Verisign. There will be no contribution to EPS. Versign therefor paid something like twice revenue but likely a very much higher multiple on profit, which is likely slim. The price doesn’t seem to be that much too high really if the revenue numbers are correct.

[Thanks to this post by Heiko](http://www.hebig.com/archives/002129.shtml), I also found out that the Samwer brothers, who founded Jamba, received $43 Million in eBay stock back when they sold Alando to eBay in 1999. If they didn’t sell, this would be worth roughly $120+ million today, dependent on the exact date. I still remember Oliver Samwer speaking at my University when they just had sold.

All in all. Interesting move, pushing forward the importance of mobile life really and adding another few millions to the Samwer Brothers’ bank accounts. I wonder how long they will stay at Versign. They left eBay pretty quickly ;)