As I alluded to in a previous post on Handheld Entertainment’s $17.5M acqusition of eBaum’s World, GoFish made it official today: the deal for Bolt.com is off. Bolt.com was a promising content producer once upon a time, but then envy and greed, I presume got to its head and it veered off into UGC (read: copyright violated content). Universal Music came knocking, sued for $30M and somehow, GoFish decided to buy it.
GoFish is one of the many distribution partners in WatchMojo.com’s web syndication network…
Today, it announced that the deal is off, the PR reads:
GoFish Terminates Plan to Acquire Bolt Media
GoFish Corporation (OTCBB:GOFH), the leading Internet Video Network showcasing original, Made-for-Internet (’MFI’) programming, today announced it has terminated the company’s agreement to acquire Bolt, Inc. (aka Bolt Media).
SAN FRANCISCO (BusinessWire EON) August 2, 2007 — On February 12, 2007, GoFish announced its intention to acquire Bolt Media, subject to certain closing conditions. One of these conditions was that Bolt Media finalize a definitive settlement to the outstanding copyright infringement lawsuit filed against it by UMG Recordings Inc. and settle comparable potential claims from other record labels and music publishers, subject to financial parameters acceptable to GoFish. Bolt Media was ultimately unable to reach a definitive settlement within these agreed upon parameters.
As the overhanging lawsuits against Bolt represent too much of a liability for GoFish at this stage of the company’s growth, GoFish’s board of directors and its management have decided not to proceed with the merger.
No termination or other fee will be payable in connection with the deal’s cancellation.
“After concerted efforts to reach a viable economic settlement with the music industry, we concluded that Bolt’s potential liabilities would be too difficult for GoFish to absorb at this time. While we have determined that this merger no longer makes strategic sense for GoFish, we will continue to weigh business opportunities based on their ability to deliver meaningful returns for our shareholders,” commented Tabreez Verjee, president of GoFish.
“GoFish remains firmly focused on delivering the most compelling, original video content on the Internet,” says Michael Downing, CEO of GoFish. “As part of our strategy to expand the GoFish Network, we continue to explore revenue generating opportunities through partnerships, mergers and acquisitions.”
There’s at least two sides to this story, if in fact “GoFish remains firmly focused on delivering the most compelling, original video content on the Internet,” then Bolt.com had no business being a part of that strategy, but in all fairness, despite my wishes to see GoFish succeed, Michael Arrington yesterday did make the point that once GoFish’s market cap fell from $100M to $15M (what it is today), forking over $30M for a liability without much upside, the Board could no longer honor its fiduciary duty and vote for this deal.
The future for these high traffic destinations could be very bright… if they just listen to me. I’m joking in the last sentence there, I think so anyway.
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