From Rollups to M&A: An Investor’s View

Gail Chiasson, North American Editor

New York-based Searchlight Capital is an investment company that, to date, has not invested in any digital out-of-home or digital place-based media company but is known to be looking at the sector closely, so the Digital Signage Investment Conference to be held Oct. 17-18 has cleverly nabbed one of the company’s founding partners to tell the audience just what they should be offering if they expect to attract investors.

Eric Zinterhofer will be the conference’s opening speaker at 8:45 a.m. on Day One.

His topic From Rollups to M&A: An Investor’s View on Achieving Scale and Creating a Valuable Platformexisting companies looking for funding or exits should note the term ‘Rollups’ here, Ed – and you don’t want to be late for what is expected to be one of the most informative presentations of the New York event.

“I’ll go through key criteria that would allow a DOOH company to be successful and why these qualities would be attractive to investors,” says Zinterhofer. “I’ll be ilooking at various trends seen in the current economic environment and the effect on industry growth. And I’ll be including both positive and negative positions.”

Zinterhoffer will then go on to discuss several areas that must be looked at by investors, such as:

  • Do you own the company?
  • What kind of audience do you have?
  • What is your experience in terms of quality?
  • How do advertisers view you?
  • What do advertising agencies say they need from you?

“I’ll also look at other elements such as pricing, whether your advertising can give return on investment and other points that can influence how an investor sees you,” says Zinterhofer.

“I think that that the industry is ripe for consolidation, particularly in certain categories,” he says. “And there are logical business reasons why independents might be attractive to investors.”

“It will all depend on the tailwinds.”


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