Advising on complex public M&A transaction for Boku Inc.

We have advised Boku Inc., a leading global mobile payment and mobile identity company on its conditional acquisition of Fortumo Holdings, a transaction valued at a maximum enterprise value of $41 million. The acquisition will cement the Group's positioning as a leading mobile payment and mobile identity solutions company.

The acquisition will be funded by an unconditional placing to raise gross proceeds of up to approximately $25 million and new bank facilities of approximately $20 million. The transaction is expected to complete on 1 July 2020.

Boku works with Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Spotify and some 200 carriers to allow users to pay for digital goods like apps and subscriptions via their mobile bills.

We served as UK legal counsel to Boku in collaboration with Wilson Sonsini, which served as US counsel in the transaction.

Commenting on the deal, Corporate partner Russell Holden, said:

It was a pleasure supporting Boku and their management team on this transaction – it is a testament to the capability and agility of all involved to close the acquisition and related placing and debt facility during the COVID-19 lockdown. We have real strength in advising cutting-edge technology businesses and this acquisition helps position Boku as the leading global mobile payment system and identity platform used by many of the world's leading digital merchants. We remain very excited by the Boku business and look forward to seeing it go from strength to strength on the back of this acquisition.”

Jon Prideaux, CEO of Boku Inc, added:

Boku has always grown by a mixture of organic growth and selective acquisition. This deal, which will be our sixth, cements our position as the scale player in Direct Carrier Billing. It brings together the two most profitable players in the industry, with compatible technology, complementary customers and with a great cultural fit. We were very pleased with the response which Boku received from the market on the placing, and the team effort that went in to making it a success. The combined Taylor Wessing and Wilson Sonsini teams were a core part of that, and their expertise and dedication was an important component in executing this transaction.”

Our team was led by partner Russell Holden with senior associate James Homan and support across a multi-disciplinary team. Corporate senior associate Marie Fong Sing, corporate associate Angela Petrevska, banking and finance senior counsel Fiona Coady and banking and finance associate Kate Bowden and trainee Olivia Perry also worked on this deal.

The Wilson Sonsini team was led by partner Dan Keating, partner Charlotte Kim and associate Amanda Pollard.