TiVo Corporation announced that the company’s Board has unanimously approved a plan to separate its Product and IP Licensing businesses.
Based upon an extensive review of strategic alternatives, TiVo’s Board of Directors decided that separating its Product and IP Licensing businesses is believed to be the best strategy to maximize shareholder value. Accordingly, TiVo intends to spin out its Product business to shareholders. Throughout the separation process, the Board of Directors will continue to be open to strategic transactions for each business that could create additional stockholder value and is actively engaged in discussions with parties interested in each of the businesses.
“In the rapidly evolving market landscape we now operate in, we have determined that our Product and IP Licensing businesses will be better positioned as standalone separate entities,” said Raghu Rau, Interim President and Chief Executive Officer. “Operating independently, these two businesses will have increased flexibility to pursue new and growing market opportunities. We believe this separation is the best way to maximize shareholder value, while also enhancing the possibility of value-creating strategic transactions.”
TiVo believes the separation of its Products and IP Licensing and business will benefit shareholders for the following reasons:
TiVo’s Product business – Consisting of the Platform Solutions and Software and Services businesses. TiVo offers a suite of component technologies that can be integrated into any of our customers’ internally developed platforms or deployed as an integrated TiVo solution for video service providers or retail markets. As of December 31, 2018, there were an estimated 23 million households worldwide utilizing our Platform Solutions. For the full year 2018, our Product segment generated $401 million in revenue, with a large component of recurring revenue.
For content creators, service providers and consumers, TiVo provides a trusted neutral platform to connect audiences to content and monetize transactions. In addition to offering innovative and market leading solutions to our customers, the keys to the Product business success are scale, trust and neutrality.
By separating from our IP Licensing business, the company believes that Product business can pursue a customer-first strategy without the encumbrances or complexity of being tied to an IP Licensing business.
The company expect that operating independently will open our Product business up to greater receptivity from service providers, content providers and device manufacturers, as well as potential customers in new markets. In particular, as an independent Product oriented company, we believe we can better drive market adoption of our next generation products and develop additional innovative solutions for our customers.
TiVo’s IP Licensing business – The company’s expansive and highly valuable Rovi and TiVo patent portfolios encompass approximately 5,500 issued patents and pending applications worldwide. Hundreds of millions of consumers have access to innovations through license agreements with leading video providers around the world.
The company’s licensees include traditional and new media video providers across Pay-TV, OTT, Mobile, Consumer Electronics and Social Media markets. For the full year 2018, IP Licensing revenue was $295 million, with a high percentage of this recurring revenue.
The company believes that the announced separation will enable IP Licensing business to pursue a broader horizontal licensing strategy and capitalize on emerging growth opportunities. The ability to pursue an independent strategy going-forward will allow the IP Licensing business the freedom to focus on innovating around the new frontiers of video entertainment and communications which are developing beyond our traditional footprint and help to usher in the next phase of the consumer video experience.
The separation will enable the IP business to strategically reinvest in its own business, not only to solidify its strong, existing foundation, but also to appropriately pursue new long-term growth opportunities.
