The Walt Disney Company completes Lucasfilm acquisition

December 18, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet

DisneyThe Walt Disney Company has completed its acquisition of Lucasfilm Ltd. LLC.

Robert A. Iger, President and Chief Executive Officer, said, “We’re thrilled to welcome Lucasfilm to the Disney family,” said Iger. “Star Wars is one of the greatest family entertainment franchises of all time and this transaction combines that world class content with Disney’s unique and unparalleled creativity across multiple platforms, businesses, and markets, which we believe will generate growth as well as significant long-term value.”

Under the terms of the merger agreement, at closing Disney issued 37,076,679 shares and made a cash payment of $2,208,199,950. Based upon the closing price of Disney shares on December 21, 2012 at $50.00, the transaction has a total value of approximately $4.06 billion.

Lucasfilm’s assets include its massively popular Star Wars franchise, operating businesses in live action film production, consumer products, animation, visual effects, and audio post production, as well as a substantial portfolio of cutting-edge entertainment technologies. It operates under the names Lucasfilm Ltd. LLC, LucasArts, Industrial Light & Magic, and Skywalker Sound.

USA, Burbank, CA & San Francisco, CA

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Nielsen to acquire Arbitron

December 18, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet

nielsenNielsen Holdings N.V., a provider of information and insights into what consumers watch and buy, is to acquire Arbitron Inc., an international media and marketing research firm.

Nielsen will acquire all of the outstanding common stock of Arbitron for $48 per share in cash, representing a premium of approximately 26 percent to Arbitron’s closing price on December 17, 2012. Nielsen has a financing commitment for the total transaction amount.

“U.S. consumers spend almost 2 hours a day with radio. It is and will continue to be a vibrant and important advertising medium,” said Nielsen Chief Executive Officer David Calhoun. “Arbitron will help Nielsen better solve for unmeasured areas of media consumption, including streaming audio and out-of-home. The high level of engagement with radio and TV among rapidly growing multicultural audiences makes this central to Nielsen’s priorities.”

Arbitron generated total revenues of $445 million and adjusted EBITDA of $131 million for the 12 months ended September 30, 2012. Cost synergies are reported to be at least $20 million and will be largely driven by the integration of technology platforms and data acquisition efforts.

USA, New York, NY

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Dods to acquire Biteback Media Limited and Holyrood Communications Limited

December 18, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet

imagesDods Group is to acquire Biteback Media Limited, (excluding its publishing subsidiary), and Holyrood Communications Limited from Political Holdings Limited.

The consideration payable for Biteback is £795,000 in cash. The Holyrood acquisition is to be settled by £416,806 in cash plus a further potential payment of £250,000 if certain gross profit targets are met. Biteback Media Limited publishes Total Politics, a monthly political magazine, and organises associated events. Biteback generated an EBITDA loss of £0.35 million for year to 31 December 2011 on revenues of £0.47 million. Based on the management accounts for the ten-month period to 31 October 2012 Biteback generated revenues of £0.7 million, an EBITDA loss of £0.1 million and had net assets of £0.2 million after an adjustment for intercompany loans. Holyrood is a publishing and events business based in Edinburgh, with particular focus on Scottish politics and current affairs. The acquisition of Holyrood will enable Dods to benefit from the increase in political activity in Scotland over the next two years. In the year ended 31 March 2012 Holyrood achieved revenues of £1.9 million and generated EBITDA of £0.1m.

UK, London

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Nasdaq OMX Group to acquire the investor relations, public relations, and multimedia solutions units of Thomson Reuters Corp for $390 million

December 18, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet

The NASDAQ OMX Group is to acquire the Investor Relations, Public Relations and Multimedia Solutions businesses of Thomson Reuters for $390 million in cash. The businesses provide insight, analytics and communications solutions to more than 7,000 clients worldwide. They will be integrated into NASDAQ OMX Corporate Solutions.

“In one acquisition, we accelerate and achieve our Corporate Solutions long-term objectives, while maintaining our balanced strategy of delivering value to shareholders,” said Bob Greifeld, Chief Executive Officer, NASDAQ OMX.

“We believe that NASDAQ OMX is the ideal fit for our Investor Relations, Public Relations and Multimedia Solutions businesses,” said Michael Cotter, Global Managing Director of Corporate Services, Thomson Reuters.

The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2013

USA, New York, NY

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Elsevier Announces its Acquisition of the Journal of Choice Modelling

December 17, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet

elsevierElsevier has acquired the Journal of Choice Modelling (JOCM). Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

JOCM was founded in 2008 by its editors, Stephane Hess and John Rose, who will remain in charge after the transfer to Elsevier.

The Journal of Choice Modelling publishes theoretical and applied papers in the field of choice modelling. The journal covers topics such as transport and marketing where the analysis of choice behaviour is a topic of interest. While it mainly focuses on the use of discrete choice models, other methods and survey design are also discussed.

Chris Pringle , Executive Publisher at Elsevier said, “Since the Journal of Choice Modelling‘s interests extend from transport into marketing, finance, environmental economics and beyond, its focus on choice modelling nicely complements our existing journals in both economics and transport, in a growth area which we wanted to represent more strongly in our list. JOCM and its editors have a track record of demonstrated success, and we are very happy to have the opportunity to add such a high quality journal to the Elsevier family.”

UK, Oxford & UK, Leeds

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TechTarget acquires LeMagIT

December 17, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet

TechTarget_Logo-TaglineTechTarget has acquired the websites and product offerings of LeMagIT, a strategic partner with TechTarget since 2010.

Since its launch in 2008, LeMagIT’s network of sites has offered French-language news and analysis for IT decision makers on core enterprise IT topics such as cloud computing, virtualization, security, and storage and attracts over 250,000 visits per month. The existing management and editorial team of LeMagIT, led by Chairman Eric Ochs, and Founder and Chief Operating Officer David Castaneira, will be remaining with the company and working with TechTarget to continue to grow its French business. Ochs was formerly CEO at IDG France, and Castaneira, formerly the Online Director at IDG France.

LeMagIT’s network includes LeMagIT.fr, StratégiesCloud.fr, as well as an IT white paper and webcast library, LesSourcesIT.fr.

“Our EMEA-based business continues to see very strong growth, and this acquisition is a further investment in our capabilities there,” said Greg Strakosch, CEO, TechTarget. “It is also a continuation of our strategy of having direct operations in the major markets across the world, giving our advertisers the ability to run integrated campaigns across multiple geographies.”

USA, Newton, MA & France, Paris

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Reed MIDEM acquires LeWeb

December 14, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet

midemLogoReed MIDEM, part of Reed Exhibitions and an organiser of international tradeshows and conferences, has acquired LeWeb, an internet conference and networking events business.

Launched in Paris in 2004 by Loic and Geraldine Le Meur , LeWeb brings together the key players in the international internet ecosystem including entrepreneurs and visionaries, investors and venture capitalists, technology businesses, large companies, digital marketers and journalists. In addition to its annual Paris gathering, LeWeb launched a London event in June 2012.

Commenting on the acquisition, Reed MIDEM Chief Executive Officer Paul Zilk said, “LeWeb fits very well with Reed MIDEM. We share the same ambition for developing premium international events where participants network and build relationships, do business, launch new products and discover the latest innovations.

France, Paris

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QVC acquires Oodle

December 10, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet

QVC‘s wholly owned subsidiary California Voices is to acquire the assets of Oodle, Inc., the social commerce company that runs the Oodle Marketplace application on Facebook. The acquisition is expected to close by December 31, 2012. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Oodle has raised $23 million in funding.

“The QVC shopping experience is fundamentally social in nature,” said Claire Watts, QVC U.S. CEO.  “With this acquisition, we can fuel our evolving social commerce experience.  Oodle brings a great team that shares our values and passion for creating a rich customer experience.”

See, CEO and co-founder of Oodle, Craig Donato’s blog announcement here.

USA, West Chester, PA

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MediaMath acquires mobile and video ad delivery platform Tap.Me

December 10, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet

mediamathMediaMath, a digital media-buying platform, has acquired mobile and video in-game ad platform Tap.Me.  The terms of the deal were not disclosed.  Tap.Me had raised in excess of $4M from investors including: Hyde Park Venture Partners, I2A Fund, Hyde Park Angels and Great Oaks Venture Capital.

“As marketers are increasingly turning their focus to mobile and video, Tap.Me has built technology that makes it easy for marketers to deliver their message in these environments,” said Joe Zawadzki, MediaMath CEO. “By adding their technology and brilliant engineering team, we’re building a better platform that gives advertisers the ability to buy across all digital marketing channels from one single platform.”

Tap.Me CEO Matt Spiegel joins MediaMath’s executive team as SVP and GM of Open, MediaMath’s business and technology environment for digital interoperability, and will oversee MediaMath’s operations in the Mid-West region.  The entire Tap.Me team will join MediaMath.

New York, NY & Chicago, IL

 

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Yahoo! acquires video chat company OnTheAir

December 10, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet

Reuters is reporting that, Yahoo! has acquired video chat company OnTheAir. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

A Yahoo! spokeswoman said that Yahoo! had not plans to offer OnTheAir’s existing product, which lets Web users host live video conversations and was launched in March.

This is the second acquisition for Yahoo’s mobile group since Marissa Mayer became CEO earlier this year. In October, Yahoo! acquired Stamped, a New York-based mobile startup that allows consumers to share information about favorite restaurants and music on their smartphones.

Mayer, a former Google Inc executive, has said that her top priority is to create a coherent mobile strategy for Yahoo! and that she intends for at least half of the company’s technical workforce to be working on mobile products.

See the announcement at OnTheAir’s website here.

USA, Sunnydale, CA

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