Thomson Reuters acquires Zawya from Saffar

June 27, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet

Thomson Reuters, has acquired Zawya Limited, an online service supplying profiles of companies in in the Middle East and North Africa,  along with real-time news and research, and an online network for professionals. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Zawya was bought from Saffar, a MENA focused financial services and investment group.

Arma Partners acted as exclusive financial adviser to Saffar, and SNR Denton and Maples & Calder acted as legal advisers to Saffar on the sale of Zawya.

UAE, Dubai

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Lagardère completes its hostile takeover of LeGuide

June 20, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet

The Lagardère group has succeeded in a hostile takeover of LeGuide.com. Lagardère announced on Monday that they have acquired “more than the majority of the share capital of online shopping company LeGuide.com at the end of the voluntary public offer.”

Lagardère had initially offered €24 per share. this was raised to €28 per share valuing the company at €98.2 million. According to a report in LeExpress, in 2011 LeGuide.com made a net profit of €500K on a turnover of €28.2 million and the stock market had values the business at €88 million before the new offering.

The announcement said, “By acquiring for a reasonable price a profitable and fast growing company, which is no.1 in Europe in the price comparison business, Lagardère Active strengthens its position on the performance based monetization market, and thus confirms its strategy of digitalization and its positioning on creation and monetization of audiences.”

France, Paris

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Facebook has acquired Face.com

June 20, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet

Facebook has acquired Face.com for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition was announced on the Face.com blog.

“Our mission is and has always been to find new and exciting ways to make face recognition a fun, engaging part of people’s lives, and incorporate remarkable technology into everyday consumer products. If you’re anything like us, Facebook is a part of your life every single day.  We keep up with our friends and family, share interesting (or mundane) experiences from our daily lives, and perhaps most importantly for us, we share a LOT of photos.

Read the rest of the June 18, 2012 blog entry here.

USA, Menlo Park, CA

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Bertram Books has acquired Houtschild Internationale Boekhandel B.V.

June 19, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet

Bertram Books, a wholly owned subsidiary of Smiths News PLC, has acquired Houtschild Internationale Boekhandel B.V. from Blackwell UK Ltd for a net consideration of €0.7 million satisfied in cash via its subsidiary Dawson Books Ltd.

Houtschild, based in the Netherlands, is a supplier of books and journals into both academic libraries and Government Institutions across Northern Europe and is very well regarded by a loyal customer base.  In the year ended 30 June 2011, Houtschild generated revenues of €4.9 million.

Mark Cashmore, Chief Executive Officer of Smiths News PLC, said, “We are delighted to have completed this acquisition, which is an excellent addition to our books business.  Houtschild represents a clear international strategic step for Bertrams consistent with our stated aim.  The Group will benefit from synergies, an increase in scale and a stronger sales presence in Northern Europe, as well as accelerating the digital platform roll out.”

UK, Swindon, Wiltshire & The Netherlands, Rijswijk

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McCann Worldgroup acquires Lakestar Medi

June 15, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet
McCann Worldgroup, part of Interpublic Group has completed the acquisition of independent digital marketing agency Lakestar Media.

The acquisition has been undertaken to enhance McCann Worldgroup’s SEO capability across all of its operating companies in the UK.

Lakestar was founded five years ago by current Head of Sales Demetrious Loizou. Chief Executive Neil McKay joined the company in 2008 and has played a leading role growing the organisation to its present size where it now employs 50 colleagues. The agency specialises in digital marketing and has built a core strength around SEO.

Following the acquisition, Lakestar Media, which has offices in London and Manchester will be operated and managed by McCann Manchester and the deal will enhance McCann Worldgroup’s digital offering in the UK. Lakestar will continue to operate its own client base as well as working alongside McCann Worldgroup companies to deliver an enhanced SEO offering to the client base.

The deal is the latest in series of acquisitions by both McCann Worldgroup and McCann Manchester. Two years ago McCann Manchester acquired research, NPD and innovation consultancy Blue Banana. Last year McCann Worldgroup acquired All of Us and Meteorite to further strengthen McCann Worldgroup’s offering in the UK.

At the present time, Lakestar will continue to operate from its London offices and new premises in Manchester and will be working closely with all McCann Worldgroup companies in the UK to deliver highly collaborative digital solutions to clients.

Neil McKay will continue to run Lakestar following the acquisition and the current management team will remain in place. Sue Little, Chief Executive of McCann Manchester and Martin Jackson, CFO of McCann Worldgroup UK will join the board of Lakestar to manage the integration and subsequent development of the company within McCann Worldgroup.

According to Sue Little, Chief Executive of McCann Manchester, “The completion of this deal significantly enhances our SEO offering and makes our overall integrated digital offering incredibly strong. We’ve been wanting to grow our SEO offering for some time and we’ve been looking for a potential partner for well over a year. I’m delighted to be able to welcome Neil and the Lakestar team into the McCann group of companies and believe the acquisition represents an incredibly exciting opportunity for our clients.

Commenting on the acquisition, Gustavo Martinez, President of McCann Worldgroup Europe said, “The successful conclusion of this acquisition further strengthens an already powerful digital offering from McCann in the UK. By acquiring an SEO specialist of this scale and experience it means our UK operations can offer clients operating nationally and internationally a truly integrated digital solution. We believe this acquisition has the potential to drive further digital growth in the UK and potentially beyond.”

UK, Manchester, Lancashire

 

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Tesco has bought digital music platform WE7

June 15, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet

Tesco has acquired WE7, a leading digital music platform, which will offer customers a wider choice in how they consume music and complement Tesco’s current music offer in store and online. Tesco has bought a 91% stake and will purchase the remaining shares within a period of weeks. The purchase price was £10.8 million.

The move follows the acquisition last year of blinkbox – recently voted the UK’s best online movie service by Channel 5’s The Gadget Show – and is the latest step in Tesco’s strategy to offer customers new and innovative ways of accessing digital entertainment.

WE7 is a leading free-to-listen, personalised internet radio service where customers can listen to the music they love and discover new music that they might like, based on their previous selections. With an extensive library of 11 million tracks, WE7 offers the latest releases, well-known classics and a comprehensive catalogue of all music genres.

The service is available at www.WE7.com on PC and Mac and via apps on iPhone, iPad and Android smart phones and tablets. Tesco plans to launch additional digital music services from the WE7 platform in the coming months.

Mark George, Digital Director at Tesco, said “Customers and technology together are transforming the way we listen to music.  Tesco is already one of the UK’s largest retailers of CDs; this move will help us offer a greater choice for the growing number of customers who want to access music instantly on any device, whenever and wherever they want. WE7 has a great team and a good technology platform from which we can launch a range of digital music services in the future.”

Steve Purdham, CEO of WE7 said “We are very excited by the prospect of teaming up with Tesco. With its loyal customer base, numerous marketing channels and international reach, we believe Tesco is the perfect partner to bring WE7’s music services to a wider audience. Tesco has been an innovator in entertainment retailing for many years and we look forward to continuing this innovation digitally.”

UK, Hertfordshire

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CatchFree has acquired customer analytics platform KISSinsights

June 15, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet

CatchFree, a free online service for comparing apps based on detailed customer feedback, has acquired KISSinsights from KISSmetrics, a customer analytics platform.

KISSinsights is a micro-surveying tool that enables online businesses to easily ask website users questions as they are making decisions, the crucial point at which they are likely to remember their motivation for making the decisions.

KISSmetrics and CatchFree CEO Sean Ellis have long collaborated in the survey space, launching in 2009 a free customer development survey together on Survey.io that has helped thousands of companies identify and understand their most passionate customers.

“Understanding customer feedback and motivation is a powerful way to drive breakthrough ideas for improving customer acquisition, conversion and retention rates,” said Ellis. “Several months ago we discovered that publishers on CatchFree were getting more value from the insights we uncovered than the traffic we could send. With requests for a more elegant way to collect feedback and the ability to ask custom questions, it became clear that we needed something like KISSinsights.”

USA, Newport Beach, CA

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Syncapse to acquire Clickable

June 15, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet

Syncapse, the social performance management platform is to acquire Clickable, a social and search advertising management and intelligence platform based in New York City. Syncapse is the social marketing engine for over 100 global brands including Amway, L’Oréal, Anheuser-Busch InBev, RIM, Diageo.

Clickable’s social and search advertising management functionality will become a key addition to Syncapse’s suite, which includes social media publishing, moderation, compliance, multi-channel data management, and measurement intelligence products. The result is a fully integrated SaaS solution, forging paid, earned, and owned into the most powerful Social Performance Management platform available.

As part of the acquisition, Dave Fall, Clickable’s Chief Operating Officer and former product executive from DoubleClick and Google, will join Syncapse as Chief Product Officer. Sandeep Sahi, former engineering leader from Clickable and Microsoft, will also join Syncapse as Senior Vice President of Engineering, and Managing Director of India operations. David Kidder, Clickable’s co-founder and Chief Executive, and New York Times best-selling author, will continue as a strategic advisor to Syncapse.

This strategic expansion bolsters Syncapse’s global footprint to over 220 employees complete with one of the world’s largest product and engineering teams developing social engagement and advertising solutions. Syncapse will expand its sales and marketing operations in its new headquarters in New York. Through the acquisition, Syncapse will expand its innovation and presence in Asia, with an R&D center in Gurgaon, India. Syncapse will continue operations in its offices in Toronto, London, and Portland.

“CMOs of global enterprises, are increasingly looking for a single solution to drive social performance and understand ROI across paid, earned, and owned media,” said Michael Scissons, CEO of Syncapse. “Syncapse has the most experience across all technologies and platforms, and we are committed to delivering the best product in the market that syncs with our customers’ legacy systems, including CRM, listening, media, and other databases. We were built to serve the marketing organization from day one, and will deploy the technology and knowledge from Clickable to serve our customers better than anyone in the business.”

“The inextricable link between social engagement and paid media demands that marketers tightly integrate their planning, execution, and measurement across all digital marketing investments,” said David S. Kidder, CEO and co-founder of Clickable. “By uniting with Syncapse, we’ve created an unparalleled offering to ensure marketers maximize their return on paid, owned and earned media.”

For more information, please see a blog post from Syncapse CEO Michael Scissions.

USA, New York, NY

 

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WPP plc to acquire 87% of Press Index S.A

June 14, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet

WPP plc  the global communications services group, and Press Index S.A., a media intelligence and monitoring business, announced today exclusive negotiations for the acquisition by WPP of shares representing 87% of the outstanding shares of Press Index from its founders as well as other sellers.

Provided this transaction completes, the purchaser would initiate an all-cash simplified tender offer (followed as the case may be by a squeeze-out procedure) to acquire the remaining outstanding shares of Press Index, in accordance with the General Regulation of the French Autorité des Marchés Financiers.

The price per share would be €6.81 in cash. This price would currently value Press Index at approximately €11.2 million total equity value.

UK, London & France, Paris

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Gannett buys online sports news site Quickish

June 14, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet

According to the wall Street Journal’s MarketWatch Gannett Co. Inc. has acquired news aggregator Quickish in a deal designed to boost the USA Today Sports Media Group’s focus on online sports news. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Quickish, which was launched in January 2011, works as a news curation and recommendation hub for sports news and analysis on social and media platforms. The news aggregator offers a summary and a link for sports stories, which are picked by Quickish’s editors instead of an algorithm.

Its founder, Dan Shanoff, has joined USA Today Sports as an audience development executive. Mr. Shanoff created and produced the “Daily Quickie” column for ESPN.com and has worked in content development roles for Starwave, Sports Illustrated and the NFL.

Gannett, like other struggling traditional publishers, has been attempting to bulk up its digital operations to help offset soft print advertising. The company in January acquired Fantasy Sports Ventures, a network of independent sports websites led by TheBigLead.com., part of its efforts to expand its online sports audience. Terms of that deal were also not disclosed.

Shares of Gannett rose recently 1.6% to $12.92. The stock is down 4% so far this year.

USA, McLean, VA

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