Acquisition of Controlling Stake in PowerPool.io
30th of January 2024 Lokotech Group AS (“Lokotech Group” or “the Company”)
Lokotech Group AS is pleased to announce the conditional acquisition of a 66.6% stake in Powerpool.io (“Powerpool” or “Join Venture”), a six-algorithm mining pool and blockchain services business.
Acquisition Highlights
- Started in the end of 2022, Powerpool has proven to be the most competitive PPS pool with its hourly pay-out, consistently ranking first in profitability across all algorithms, significantly reducing pool-associated costs for its clients
- Net proceeds for 2023 have a compounded monthly growth rate of approximately 18.3%. Based on December 2023, Powerpool has an annualized EBIT of approximately EUR 500,000, and an annualized gross turnover of approximately EUR 11 million
- While its majority of revenue stems from SHA-256 (primarily Bitcoin) and Scrypt (primarily Litecoin and Dogecoin merge-mined), Powerpool also supports Eaglesong, Blake2S, X11 and KHEAVYHASH
- The in-house technology compliments Lokotech Groups own pool strategy, focusing on a coin-wide Scrypt-only pool, and compliments Lokotechs’ exposure to Scrypt as underlying hashing algorithm
- Lokotech intends to utilize cross-marketing and cross-technology synergies with Scrypt ASIC products’ software - Current hashrate of SHA-256 approximately 174.2 PH/s - Current hashrate of Scrypt approximately 9.4 TH/s
- SHA-256 hashrate had an average monthly growth of 22% in 2023, and Scrypt 10% in 2023 - Powerpool utilizes proprietary software written from scratch and proprietary switching algorithms to increase its profitability and ultimately reduce fixed fees payable from clients
- Powerpool valued at annualized December 2023 EBIT x3: approximately Euros 1.5 million
- Approximately 7,400 miners of varying size are connected currently to Powerpool
- As far as we know, Lokotech will be the only listed company in Europe controlling an operational mining pool targeting external clients Lokotech Group intends to settle the partial buy-out as follows:
30% Cash on closing of sale-and-purchase agreement, approximately EUR 300,000
25% 12-months Sellers Credit, with stepwise discount(s) related to eventual underperformance of Powerpool, approximately EUR 250,000
25% Shares issued at 1.8 NOK/share with 3 months lock-up, 1,554,915 shares
20% Shares issued at 1.8 NOK/share with 6 months lock-up, 1,243,932 shares T
otaling approximately 1.59% of total shares outstanding after dilution.
The share issue is planned conducted under the power of attorney given to the board of directors on the general assembly 1st of June 2023.
Powerpools founder, Mr. Ruben Gómez Morales, will take on the role as CEO for the joint venture to drive its growth and strategic and synergistic activities within Lokotech Group. The transaction is pending successful completed reorganization in Spain and completed satisfactory legal, technical and financial due diligence.
At the time of writing, such due diligence has commenced.
The transaction is expected to be completed within 30 days.
Ruben Gómez Morales comments: “Joining forces with Lokotech Group and the team that powers it allows us to tap into their extensive experience and resources in the mining industry. Their desire to improve the mining ecosystem aligns perfectly with our vision of bringing the most profitable service to all users. I am excited to take the role of CEO in this joint venture and continue to drive innovation in the mining pool space.”
Ola Stene-Johansen, CEO Lokotech Group AS comments: “I am very happy with what we've seen in Powerpool so far. Its bespoke code and Mr. Gómez’ ever-evolving technical developments to further the pools quality and value proposition has been inspiring. I am looking forward to executing on marketing and cross-marketing efforts to continue to fuel Powerpools growth. I also find it reassuring that someone with such profound expertise in mining would like to establish a long-term partnership. Mr. Gómez is highly welcomed to the team.”
This information is considered as inside information pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation and is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to Section 5-12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act. This stock exchange announcement was published by Ola Stene-Johansen, CEO, Lokotech Group AS, on 30th of January 2024 at 13:30 CET.