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Contacts are the key to doing business, explains Stephen Green, chief executive of entertainment group Galleon Holdings, as he celebrates the company’s purchase of fast-growing specialist media concern Yunbo for up to £87 million. Yunbo is a wireless short-messaging service (SMS) and multi-media messaging service provider, holding nationwide SMS billing codes for major groups China Mobile and China Unicom.

It made £500,000 last year, in contrast to Galleon’s £392,000 loss.

Green hopes the deal will spearhead AIM-quoted Galleon’s drive into China’s interactive mobile entertainment market. He says it flows directly from October’s £1.5 million to £2 million paper purchase of Hong Kong-based Phoenix Investment Global, regarded as the quasi gatekeeper to key Chinese media concerns such as Hunan ETV.

‘The Phoenix guys have been teeing this one up for us,’ says Green, who points out that mobile service providers in China hold on to clients’ payments for 90 days or more and charge 15 to 20 per cent of billings. Yunbo is expanding into selling content, such as dating game shows, to mobile phone users. One of the two Yunbo vendors, Lushy Assets, has a licence to operate in every Chinese province.

Green says Phoenix has a ‘cash-generative and profitable’ deal with Malaysia’s TV3. The Hong Kong group is also working on co-production deals elsewhere in the region.

Galleon Holdings	AIM	£17.05m	15.50p	-0.25p
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