Mumbai: Signpost India along with its Promoters have signed a definitive Memorandum of Understanding with Pressman Advertising and its Promoters to join hands and pool their resources to create a larger entity which will be mutually beneficial to all the stakeholders.
Signpost and Pressman propose to merge the two companies to create a larger and stronger entity, subject to statutory, regulatory, and other approvals including relevant third-party consents. This will help pool in the experience, expertise, resources, and clientbase of the two companies; offer a larger bouquet of services in the areas of advertising and promotion with focus on digital media and emerging technologies. The proposed merger shall result in streamlining of operations and cost efficiency and together with thecombinedclienteleofboththecompanies,shouldresultinacceleratedbusinessgrowth.
TheCompany has constituted a Committee of Directors to facilitate the process of mergerincluding appointment of registered valuers, merchant bankers, legal consultants, and other intermediaries.
Signpost is an independent ISO certified Digital Out of Home Enterprise (DOOH). It has wideexperience in implementing large scale public oriented projects including street furniture,transit, public bicycle sharing and internet traffic monitoring system with over 32 Government authorities across the country. It serves more than 100 corporates, PSUs,Tourism and MSME brands through its own network of 11 offices. It has earned recognitionin national and international forums with 57 gold, 43 silver and 28 bronze awards like ABBYS, EMVIES, KYOORIUS, Dragon of Asia,etc.
Signpost has blazed new trails in Out of Home(OOH) advertising and specializes in OOH media and digital innovations. It has leveraged digital technologies to initiate a trend ofinnovation in the OOH industry. It has a string of successful pioneering projects that includelarge format digital billboards at Mumbai International Airport and traffic measurement system for digital media formats at Mumbai International Airport and a digital analyticsprojectforcoverageoftrafficintheentirecityofBengaluru.
Signpost’s subsidiary EFlag Analytics has developed a computer vision-basedArtificial Intelligence-Machine Learning (AI-ML) platform to measure each exposure oftraffic through image analysis, which has been validated by IISC Sustainable TransportationLab of Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru. It has implemented digital analytics for Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagar Pallika (BBMP) and Bengaluru Police for Government of Karnataka with coverage of the entire city of Bengaluru.
Signpost has a strategic investment in MojoBoxx, a smart device based wireless solutionthat enables the delivery of in-flight services including multimedia content and engagementservices.MojoBoxxcomesempoweredwithArtificialIntelligence-MachineLearningalgorithms and is the future of travel entertainment and travel commerce on the go. It’s The only Indian company to be approved by Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), USA;Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA), USA and Directorate General of Civil Aviation(DGCA), India. MojoBoxx is currently live across 102 Spicejet aircrafts, 1400 rail coachesservingseveralmillionpassengersannually.
Signpost is building on further initiatives like Livebytes (a vehicle that reaches out to ruralareas and offers real time interactivity) and Hinterland H2H, a learning and skilldevelopment programme run through secured portable high speed wireless media in theremotestvillagesinthecountry.
In FY20, Signpost reported a Revenue of Rs 425.40 crore and PAT of Rs 17.63 crore, while on account of severe impact of Covid in FY21, its Revenue declined to Rs. 185.54 crore andPATtoRs5.20crore.
Pressman is one of India’s leading independent advertising agencies engaged largely in printadvertising, public relations, and digital advertising. The media spends are now rapidly shifting from traditional advertising to new platforms in digital space and therefore the combined entity with its innovative offerings shall be well placed to grow at a rapid pace.Pressman is a debt free company with cash reserves of around Rs 40 crore. It has consistently paid high dividends to the shareholders since FY2012-13.
Shripad Ashtekar, CEO and Co-founder of Signpost said, “we are very excited about working with Pressman, a company with an impeccable track record.We have been apioneer in Digital Out of Home advertising as well as in several areas of emerging technologies and are confident that our coming together will result in accelerated growth of business for the benefit of all stakeholders.”
According to Dr. Niren Suchanti, Chairman & Managing Director, Pressman Advertising, “ithas always been our endeavour to work in the interest of our shareholders and this alliancewill enable rapid growth with a larger offering and the combined strength of the twoentities andsignificantlyenhanceshareholders’value.”
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