Babylon, ironSource cancel merger talks

The companies announced that they are no longer conducting merger talks following, "the effect of various events in the industry."

The merger talks between Babylon Ltd. (TASE:BBYL) and ironSource Ltd. have been cancelled. In a notice to the TASE today, Babylon said, "The company hereby announces that, in view of the effect of various events in the industry on the market in general and a review of the effect of events affecting Babylon in particular, the company and ironSource are continuing their dialogue and reassessments of the situation, but for now they are not conducting any negotiations on a merger agreement."

In a separate announcement, Babylon announced that CFO Shanit Pe'er-Tsfoni will succeed CEO Alon Carmeli, who will step down at the beginning of 2014.

This morning, Babylon announced that Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO) notified the company that it would not suspend or cancel the agreement between the companies, however, last week Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG) announced that it is discontinuing its agreement with Babylon from the end of November.

Babylon today reported lower revenue and profits for the third quarter.

Revenue fell 23% to $43 million for the third quarter from $50 million for the corresponding quarter. The proportion of revenue from Yahoo rose to 38% for the third quarter from 32% for the preceding quarter, while the proportion of revenue from Google fell to 37% from 43%, and from 82% in the corresponding quarter.

Net profit fell 16% to $6.3 million for the third quarter from $7.5 million for the corresponding quarter.

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on November 11, 2013

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2013

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