United Internet AG Friday announced an agreement with the owners of home.pl S.A. (Szczecin, Poland) to acquire all shares of home.pl by United Internet's subsidiary 1&1 Internet SE.
The purchase price amounts to around 135 million euros in cash, subject to adjustment at closing. home.pl is led by the private equity fund V4C Eastern Europe.
home.pl employs 240 people and currently has over 300,000 customers. With expected annual sales of around 25 million euros in 2015 and an expected EBITDA in 2015 of around 10 million euros, it is one of the big players in the Polish webhosting market.

The interest-bearing liabilities of the company, amounting to about 20 million euros, will be repaid at closing.

home.pl is planned to continue to operate as an independent company under the leadership of its current management team.
Together with the United Internet brand 1&1, which has already been operating in Poland since 2010, the objective is to gain further ground on the Polish market and  become a leading player in European market.

Further, United Internet said that since the European webhosting/cloud computing market has largely been carved up, it plans to focus more on acquisitions in future, in addition to organic growth.
Against this backdrop, United Internet plans to examine the possibility of an IPO for its "Business Applications" segment in the coming months, for which it expects sales of around 600 million euros in fiscal 2015. An IPO may be launched in around two years.
source:www.nasdaq.com