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Quickflix halts trading, Presto rumoured in buyout

Streaming / DVD rental company Quickflix announced a trading halt yesterday.

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Streaming / DVD rental company Quickflix announced a trading halt to the Australian Securities Exchange yesterday.

The move “pending release of an announcement regarding Quickflix Ltd entering into a material commercial agreement in relation to its streaming service” comes as media speculates that Foxtel / Seven Presto may be staging a buyout.

Quickflix had a market capitalisation of close to $70 million in 2012 but was worth just $1.8 million before the trading halt.

CNET reports the company recently posted $850,000 in cash losses and a total paying customer base of 123,553 -more than 70 percent of which were accessing streaming alone or streaming alongside DVD rental.

Nine last year bought a minority stake in Quickflix, paying $1 million for redeemable preference shares held by US production giant HBO. The investment included a warrant requiring the owner of the shares to be paid $10 million if anyone launches a full takeover of Quickflix. Bruce Gordon of WIN Corporation, is also a Quickflix shareholder.

Source: Aust Financial Review

3 Responses

  1. It was going to happen soon. As Bazza and Jason have said, Quickflix were the weakest – they had the crappiest service and with Foxtel, Seven, and Nine all entering the SVOD market in recent times it was always going to be difficult for them to compete with regard to accessing TV shows.

    And then Netflix landed…

    Shame that they’re (possibly) being bought out by the second weakest player. The sensible move would have been for the three Aus TV networks to have started up a service as a pre-emptive move against the eventual entry of Netlfix but, of course, they can’t play together and now that window has closed.

  2. As a Quickflix DVD subscriber I notice that my local public library often has new DVDs before Quickflix has them, far too many series & movies have a “long wait”, and not just the newer titles, and box sets have a random disc “unavailable”. Streaming is ok for those who have a decent internet connection (which is less than half of Australian homes), but not for those who would only be able to watch it on a PC.

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