RAM buys small UK mall network, hints at big plans
RAM Investment Group in the UK has extended its digital out-of-home holdings with the acquisition of Estates Media Partners and its Mall Vision network, and says it has ambitions to become one of the country’s major players.
RAM, which paid Frogmore Property £325,000 ($520,000) in shares for Estates, earlier this year acquired both ASG – the veteran UK network operator formerly known as Avanti Screenmedia – and TrainFX, which runs screens on board trains.
And now it “has the potential to become one of the largest network operators of DOOH media in the UK”, according to chairman Tim Baldwin.
Estates Media Partners has contracts to operate interactive way-finding screens – which also show advertising – in six shopping centres in Bristol, Edinburgh, Liverpool and London, while RAM itself has been awarded a further contract with the Oracle mall in Reading. It has established a new arm, RAM Vision, to absorb this latest acquisition.
Estates also had aspirations to take its screens into the pub and hotel markets, but Baldwin did not comment on whether these would be pursued.
Baldwin added that the Estates acquisition also offered potential synergies with the TrainFX business, which has previously provided software and support for other DOOH firms. He did not elaborate further, although the implication may be that TrainFX will take on at least some of the responsibility for technology in the new mall network, leaving RAM Vision to concentrate on sales.
Separately, RAM says it has won “ a six-figure contract with a Fortune 500 consumer-finance company for the provision of advertising on its network”.
www.avanti-screenmedia.com
estatesmedia.co.uk
www.raminvestmentgroup.co.uk
www.trainfx.com
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