Meridian Purchasing King Assets
KIng Products which went out of business a few months ago has shown up again with Meridian agreeing to purchase their assets.
Scale Finance announced today that its client Meridian Kiosks LLC, a leading manufacturer of kiosks to the North American Market, entered into a definitive agreement to purchase the assets of King Products and Solutions, Inc (KPSI), of Toronto Canada. KPSI is the oldest kiosk manufacturer in the world, providing signage solutions since 1946, including the world’s first kiosk. In more recent times, KPSI was the leading manufacturer of internet and telephony kiosks for airports, wayfinding kiosks for commercial properties, and retail solutions for major retail customers.
Scale Finance Managing Director Gerhard Renner, who operates as Meridian’s CFO and led the transaction, added “although financing for acquisitions is tougher to access, good deals continue to get done. In this case, we developed a very structured approach where we could leverage KPSI’s own cash-flows, and when combined with synergies from scale and scope created a very strong payback scenario."
Chris Gilder, Meridian’s CEO, commented “In today’s economic environment, we’re seeing very good opportunities for consolidating our industry. Most companies are retrenching. Our approach is just the opposite – we see the downturn as an opportunity to gain market share at very reasonable valuations. When we had an opportunity to acquire the crown jewel of our industry, we moved very quickly to make it happen. Acquiring KPSI not only expands Meridian’s product and segment offering, but also adds critical proprietary software solutions applicable to all of Meridian’s existing clients.”
Meridian will continue to operate offices in Toronto for its software division, while centralizing its manufacturing operations to its 65,000 square foot facility in North Carolina. Terms of the transaction remain confidential.
Posted by staff at April 15, 2009 07:27 AM