As the developer of the award-winning Wherifone GPS Locator Phone and Springboard Location-based Services Platform, Wherify Wireless, Inc. (OTCBB: WFYW) announced that they have entered into a non-binding letter of intent with Lightyear Network Solutions, Inc., in which Lightyear will merge their business into Wherify. At the closing of Thursday’s stock trading, Wherify’s stock rose 81.40%.
Among the things that will need to be resolved for the proposed merger to happen are: negotiations and execution of the definitive agreement; approval from shareholder’s of both companies; obtaining a minimum of $15 million in new equity capital; and restructuring of existing debt. As stated in the letter of intent, no more than $2.5 million of new equity capital can be used to restructure Wherify’s current liabilities, which total approximately $16 million, and $2.5 million of equity capital would be utilized in altering Wherify’s secured debt with Yorkville Associates. After a payment of $800,000 of new bridge indebtedness and payment of transaction expenses, the merged company will attain $6.5 million in working capital. No binding commitments for the bridge financing, equity financing, or debt restructuring have been received by Wherify.
Commenting on the proposed merger was Lightyear’s president and CEO, Sherman Henderson, “Merging the unique location based services platform from Wherify with Lightyear’s strong customer service focus, our potent multi-channel distribution network and our strong telecom industry relationships has the potential to geometrically enhance the combined company’s business prospects.”
“Bringing together Wherify’s proprietary location based service platform with Lightyear’s established leadership in customer support, multi-channel distribution and carrier presence is an excellent fit. We believe the proposed merger of Wherify and Lightyear has the potential to unlock the unfulfilled promise that location based services have represented for the wireless industry,” explained Vince Sheeran, CEO of Wherify.
Wherify develops wireless location products and provides services for family safety and communications, as well as law enforcement and security technology solutions in the United States. They are currently nearing completion of their proprietary, location-based service platform, Springboard. The Springboard platform is designed to help mobile communications carriers, mobile application providers and mobile device manufacturers to develop numerous location-based service applications for their products.
As a business and network service solutions company, Lightyear generated revenues of approximately $65 million in 2007, with an EBITDA of $2.2 million. The company provides a wide array of telecom products and services for businesses and individual customers, such as integrated network access service for voice, data, private lines, and VoIP services to over 4,000 business enterprise clients within the United States.
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