Buzz in the City about Audioboom gets louder

COULD Audioboom be about to go off? The buzz around the podcast distribution platform has been palpable since a Sky News report suggested that both Amazon and Spotify were interested in buying it.

Now City sources claim Aaqua BV – a Dutch social media start-up led by controversial dealmaker Robert Bonnier – is in talks with France’s Vivendi about setting up a joint venture to buy the firm.

Bonnier hit the headlines during the dotcom era when he made and lost a fortune with Scoot, an online directory business. Aaqua BV has already built a 15 per cent stake in Audioboom. It is backed by All Active Asset Capital, which last year failed to buy Audioboom after offering £188 million in cash and shares.

City sources, though, claim a formal bid for Audioboom might be lodged once the financing for the new joint venture has been secured. Talk is a deal could value the shares at £30. Audioboom, Aaqua BV and Vivendi did not comment.

THERE is talk in the market that engineering giant Bosch wants a bigger chunk of the Londonlisted fuel cell technology developer Ceres Power Holdings.

Bosch owns 18 per cent of Ceres Power, but there is speculation that the German firm has been weighing a bid for the whole business, possibly with a partner.

Ceres Power originally spun out of Imperial College London and floated on the AIM market in 2004. It has been refining its fuel cell technology and now its core product is a ‘steel cell’.

Earlier this year, the company signed a collaboration deal with Bosch and the Chinese firm Weichai Power, which owns about 20 per cent of Ceres. Bosch declined to comment.