Photo-me International Plc is paying 25.2m pounds ($40.8m) to acquire the 49.8% stake that it does not already own in its Japanese subsidiary Nippon Auto-Photo Kabushiki Kaisha, as the UK-based company prepares to vastly enhance the value of its booths by turning them into multimedia centers.
To accelerate the move, it is paying Automax Holding, owner of the minority stake, 23m pounds ($37.2m) of the purchase price in the form of 4,625 photo booths, which will deploy them in countries such as Israel and Romania, where Photo-me does not have any interests.
Under a deal with British Telecommunications Plc, Photo-me is to replace 1,000 of its UK booths, normally found in train stations and shopping centers, with the new multimedia centers that will offer email and internet access. A second phase will increase the multimedia penetration in the UK before rolling them out in international markets.
Photo-me is currently planning to offer multimedia facilities in Japan. Given that the income-generating potential of multimedia is considerably greater than those of passport photographs, the company was anxious to get 100% control of its Japanese operation.
