11 Sep 2012 00:11:36
Former SAS man Andy McNab has made almost £1m after the ebook platform he co-founded was sold to Tesco for £4.5m.
Mobcast, which has 130,000 titles available for download to tablet computers and mobile phones, was founded by the soldier-cum-author in 2007 along with the company's boss, Tony Lynch. The pair each held a 22% stake in the startup, with McNab's shares registered under his real name of Steven Mitchell.
McNab said: "As an author I always thought the ability to carry your library around and read on all your personal devices would be a huge benefit to all. We have developed a product that makes this possible, and being acquired by Tesco ensures that this original vision will be available to as many people as possible."
Tesco's purchase of Mobcast is the latest in a string of acquisitions in the sector, adding to the grocer's purchase of film and television streaming service Blinkbox in 2011, as well as internet radio service We7 in June 2012.
Meanwhile, rival Sainsbury's has also been busy building a presence in digital entertainment: last month it signed a deal with digital video service Rovi Corporation while in June it purchased HMV's stake in ebook business Anobii for £1.
Tesco's head of digital entertainment, Michael Comish added: "We want our customers to have the widest choice in digital entertainment. We are already one of the UK's largest booksellers and Mobcast will help us offer even more choice for the large and growing number of customers who want to buy and enjoy books on their digital devices whenever and wherever they want."
However, as the price tag suggests, the grocer is buying potential rather than the finished article. Mobcast is too small for it to be required to file full accounts with Companies House, so its revenues remain a secret. However, in the year to May 2011 it made a net loss of £816,338, up from £516,514 during the previous 12 months.
Apart from McNab and Lynch, staff held just under 2% of the business, while several outside investors including Anne Street Partners, Solon Ventures and GP Bullhound owned around 54%.
McNab joined the SAS in 1984 and served for 10 years including anti-terrorist and anti-drug operations in the Middle and Far East, South and Central America and Northern Ireland.
He has written about his experiences in the SAS in three books: Bravo Two Zero, Immediate Action and Seven Troop, with Bravo Two Zero selling over 1.7m copies in the UK.
