CME Acquires Czech Internet Company

HAMILTON, May 27: Central
European Media Enterprises (CME) has acquired 100 percent of Jyxo, an
information technology provider and operator of the leading blog site in the
Czech Republic.

The move elevates CME to
the number three position in the Czech Internet market in terms of the number
of unique visitors.

The deal, which also
includes Jyxo's affiliate, BLOG Internet, was concluded with the company’s
founder, Michal Illich, and Centralway Investment. The total consideration,
which is payable in cash, shall be $10.2 million to $12.5 million, depending on
the achievement of certain operational objectives at the second anniversary of
the acquisition.

Illich, the founder and
general manager of Jyxo and BLOG Internet, will join TV Nova to head up
technical business development and help the channel enhance its Internet
service offerings.

Jyxo’s offers a full-text
search engine, pay-per-click advertising software solutions, blog technology
and webmail services to companies in the Czech and Slovak Republics. It
operates blog.cz, the largest blogging site in the Czech Republic, which currently
has more than 400,000 active blogs and 2.5 million real users per month. Jyxo
is also active in Hungary and Slovakia.

Michael Garin, CME's CEO,
commented: "The addition of Jyxo and the leading blog site marks another
key milestone in the evolution of CME's rapidly growing Internet offering. Jyxo
and its talented employees have a proven track record of delivering many
Internet solutions, which we will be able to share between all our countries.
We remain committed to becoming one of the leading online companies in our
region. With this acquisition, along with the talents and track record of
Michal, we have taken another important step towards achieving our
ambition."

Illich added: "Jyxo
and BLOG Internet have made great strides over the past six years. Yet, I
realized that taking these companies to the next level required a partner not
only with a significant audience, but also the advertising expertise to
leverage it. In TV Nova and CME, I found the ideal companies to join. I am
eager to take advantage of CME's support, extensive resources and operational
scale to expand and improve the services we deliver to our users."

—By Mansha Daswani