Tough times ahead for Brandscreen as it goes into administration

Faced with stiff competition from the likes of Google, media trading technology company Brandscreen with offices in Australia, Singapore and China has entered the process of administration, to evaluate the company’s future prospects including a possibility of a sell off.The administrators, Sule Arnautovic and Roderick Mackay Sutherland of Jirsch Sutherland, were appointed as voluntary administrators of Brandscreen on 31 December 2013 and are undertaking a review of the operations of the business and are implementing restructuring initiatives.“We are of the opinion that Brandscreen’s position in the Asia Pacific programmatic space is a valuable asset and we are engaging now with all parties who may be interested to incorporate the numerous assets of Brandscreen into their business,” Sule Arnautovic, managing partner at Jirsch Sutherland said.“Also, we have retained the management team to assist with the sale of the business,” it said.Assets for the sale include all Intellectual Property, client contacts, receivables, computer and office equipment and all other assets required to operate the business. Those interested are to contact Jirsch Sutherland.Meanwhile, the business in Singapore and Australia remains open and are trading.The statement also added that reason for the Voluntary Administration was “because the management team was working on a trade sale late last year and bridge financing didn't complete.”The company was established in Australia in 2006 and made its entry in Asia in 2011. A year later, in 2012, Brandscreen also received funding of more than US$11million to expand across Asia and Brandscreen. CEO Julian Tol had then said the funds would be used to accelerate its drive to be the top digital marketing platform in Australia, China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia.Meanwhile just last November, Brandscreen struck a partnership with Baidu Exchange Service to make the search giant’s inventory available via real time bidding on the Brandscreen platform. The deal saw Brandscreen plug in Baidu’s search data to give global advertisers more advanced targeting of Baidu users, including cookie-sync for improved re-targeting performance.Brandscreen could not be contacted for more comments at the time of writing.