Who Wants To Merge Wireless Ronin And Keyser Industries?
On the exact same date (2nd November 2011) that this ‘Keyser Industries and Wireless Ronin Technologies Enter Joint Marketing Agreement to Deliver Complete Digital Signage Solutions to Quick-Service Restaurants‘ was being announced a document was quietly being circulated in investment circles by a boutique investment firm out of Minneapolis with a proposal to merge Wireless Ronin Technologies, Inc (NasdaqCM: RNIN ) and Keyser Industries into a single company and to try to take them private.
What’s that I hear you say? “If one rock doesn’t float, let’s tie it to another rock and see if the two rocks will float together?”
The angle is / was of course to raise (more) money (tens of millions) to try and fund this NewCo and no doubt then hope that this new merged entity all of a sudden turns around.
The business issue is surely that the deal with Keyser was shown to shareholders as a strategic alliance good for Ronin but now, in trying to merge the companies and take private, someone (and it might not be Ronin management) is trying to screw the shareholders even more than they have already (by seriously burning through their money).
The Minneapolis banker is, we believe, currently trying to syndicate the proposal to get other bankers and Private Equity to invest.
Ronin have lost an astonishing amount of money for such a small company with so little revenues. Keyser could only politely be described as an old time company that does print menuboards for QSR.
If I were a Wireless Ronin shareholder, I would be quite upset if it were found to be true that current management is not spending time on fixing the business organically, rather just trying to find a way out but we guess that short-term prospects are better than no-term prospects, right?
Categories: DailyDOOH Update
[…] some signs of some struggling vendors. Earlier today, my intrepid pen pal Adrian Cotterill of The DailyDOOH posted a story on an investment document making the rounds proposing a Wireless Ronin-Keyser Group […]
by Digital Signage Blog | Is Going Private a Menu Special? on Dec 2, 2011 at 19:29 @853
a reply from ronin, posted on the yahoo RNIN message boards:
We received your email inquiring about a recent article which surfaced on the daily DOOH website this past week. This article was not a quote from the company and therefore would be classified as a “rumor” and not a factual statement from the Company. As you can image with the advent of the internet and blogs, we have no control over what one’s opinion is on our company and what they want to promote. The only relationship we currently have with Keyser Co. is that we released in a formal press release back on November 2, 2011. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact me directly.
Regards,
Darin
Darin McAreavey
Vice President & CFO
by screwed shareholder on Dec 7, 2011 at 15:01 @667