Grey acquires full-service digital agency Sensio in France

July 20, 2017 — Fusion DigiNet

wppWPP’s wholly-owned operating company Grey has acquired a majority stake in Extrême-Sensio in France. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Sensio is a full service digital agency that offers services including consulting, design, technology and customer acquisition. Founded in 1998, the agency has around 75 people and is headquartered in Paris. Clients include Groupe PSA, AXA, E.Leclerc, Futuroscope, Häagen Dazs and Nexity. Sensio’s revenues were approximately €7.7 million for the year ended 31 December 2016 with gross assets of approximately €5.7 million as at the same date. The company is listed as one of the “Growth Champions” by Les Echos / Statista, and features in the Financial Times’ “1000 Fastest Growing Companies”.

UK, London & France, Paris

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Taptica Acquires Majority Holding in Adinnovation

July 17, 2017 — Fusion DigiNet

Taptica, a global end-to-end mobile advertising platform for advertising agencies and brands, has acquired a majority shareholding in Adinnovation Inc., a Japanese mobile advertising agency, for up to $5.7 million.

Taptica is paying up to $5.7m for 57% of the issued share capital of ADI with approximately three-quarters payable immediately on closing and the remainder after 12 months based on ADI meeting certain targets. In addition, the Company has a call option to purchase the remaining 43% of the issued share capital of ADI for a price of 8x net profit and for a period of six months commencing three years after closing. Thereafter, ADI has a put option for a period of three months to sell at a price of 7x net profit.

Hagai Tal, Chief Executive Officer of Taptica, said: “We are delighted to welcome Adinnovation into the Taptica family. The two companies have been working closely together over the past year, generating revenues and profits together. The acquisition is expected to be accretive and earnings enhancing from day one and we also expect to benefit from a number of strategic synergies and mitigate the costs and risks we would have incurred to penetrate a market such as Japan organically. As a result, the Directors believe this transaction will be a key milestone in the continued international expansion of Taptica.”

Israel, Tel Aviv & USA, San Francisco, CA & Japan, Tokyo

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Centaur Media Plc sells Home Interest Business for £32 million and acquires MarketMakers for an initial consideration of £13.4 million

July 7, 2017 — Fusion DigiNet

Centaur Media Plc is to sell its business-to-consumer division, Home Interest for £32 million to Future plc and at the same time, acquire MarketMakers Incorporated Limited, an integrated marketing services businesses, for an initial consideration of £13.4 million with a deferred earnout amount based on EBITDA performance.

The proceeds from the sale of Home Interest will be used to pay for the acquisition of MarketMakers. Therefore completion of the acquisition is conditional on completion of the sale.

MarketMakers had revenues of £11.4 million and adjusted EBITDA of £1.7 million for year ended 31 December 2016. It is ranked as the No.1 telemarketing agency in the UK by B2B Marketing and has achieved growth in revenues of 27% over the last three years.

Centaur’s Home Interest division includes Homebuilding & Renovating, Period Living and Real Homes.

The transactions help Centaur focus on becoming a B2B digital, business intelligence and events company and to reduce its reliance on print and advertising .

Andria Vidler, Chief Executive, commented: “These transactions are a major step forward in the continuing transformation of Centaur into a B2B focussed business, providing our increasingly professional customer base with a range of higher value-added products and services.

“The process of taking Centaur up the B2B value chain continues, and these transactions are a very significant step forward in our ambitions.”

UK, London

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Huntsworth acquires The Creative Engagement Group

July 3, 2017 — Fusion DigiNet

Huntsworth plc, a healthcare communications and public relations group, has acquired The Creative Engagement Group (TCEG) from funds managed by LDC (Managers) Limited and certain members of TCEG’s management for £24.7 million.

TCEG is a collection of three creative agencies – WRG, The Moment and Just Communicate – that provide experiential marketing primarily through events and digital marketing, including virtual and augmented reality, predominantly to healthcare clients. TCEG is based in the UK but services clients across the world, with approximately one third of revenue generated in the US.

The TCEG management team is led by CEO Russ Lidstone and COO David Sharrock, and both will remain with the business.

TCEG generated revenues of c. £26 million and EBITDA of c. £3.8 million in the year to 31 October 2016. TCEG’s gross assets were £26.6m as at 31 October 2016.

Commenting on the acquisition, Paul Taaffe, Group CEO, said:

“TCEG is a great company with a wealth of talent and blue chip clients which will benefit from Huntsworth’s reach and connections especially in healthcare. With more and more clients seeking to engage both employees and customers with powerful experiences, TCEG is well positioned for future growth.”

UK, London

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XLMedia PLC acquires Securethoughts.com for $2M

June 27, 2017 — Fusion DigiNet

XLMdia PLC, a provider of performance marketing, has acquired Securethoughts.com, a US cyber security comparison website, for $2.0 million.

Ory Weihs, Chief Executive Officer of XLMedia, commented: “We are delighted to announce the acquisition of Securethoughts, our first and significant publishing asset in the fast growing cyber security sector. Securethoughts represents another excellent opportunity for XLMedia to increase its North American presence, diversify its revenues and establish a foothold in another vertical. This acquisition is a further step in executing our successful strategy of diversifying our activities and expanding into additional markets and geographies.”

Previous acquisitions:

UK, Jersey, St. Helier

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Grey acquires majority stake in Bruketa&Žinić, in Croatia

March 16, 2017 — Fusion DigiNet

WPP’ wholly-owned operating company Grey, the global marketing communications agency, is to take a majority stake in Bruketa&Žinić OM d.o.o. in Croatia. Founded in 1995 and based in Zagreb, Bruketa&Žinić is a full-service creative agency. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Following this acquisition, Bruketa&Žinić will merge with Grey Zagreb, a wholly-owned operating company of WPP and Grey Worldwide, to create Bruketa&Zinic&Grey. This merger will strengthen WPP’s offer in the Adriatic region and allow Bruketa&Žinić to tap into business opportunities throughout Grey’s EMEA region.

Bruketa&Žinić’s revenues for the year ended 31 December 2015 were approximately HRK20.9 million with gross assets of approximately HRK12.9 million as at the same date. The company employs approximately 60 people.

UK, London & Croatia, Zagreb

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Ogilvy & Mather acquires stake in Eightytwenty in Ireland

February 20, 2017 — Fusion DigiNet

ogilvyWPP‘s wholly-owned marketing communications network, Ogilvy & Mather, has acquired a stake in its digital partner and Irish digital communications business, Eightytwenty Customer Experience Limited.

 Dublin-based Eightytwenty employs around 30 people and has developed a bespoke model that combines creative, data, performance media and technology to design and deliver campaign narratives across the entire customer journey. 

Ogilvy & Mather and Eightytwenty have been working together since 2015. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

UK, London & Ireland, Dublin

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Ascential plc acquires MediaLink for up to $207M

February 8, 2017 — Fusion DigiNet

ascentialAscential plc the B2B media company, is to acquire US-based media advisory and business services provider MediaLink for an initial cash price of $69 million plus earnouts.

The earnouts are payable over the period to February 2021 based on the adjusted EBITDA of the business for the three years 2017 to 2019 and are expected to total between $42m and $62m. The earnouts are payable in cash or, for certain elements, shares at Ascential’s option and a portion of the earn-out payments is subject to founders remaining in employment with the company. The total aggregate consideration, including initial consideration and earn out payments, is capped at $207m and requires stretching profit targets to be reached.

MediaLink reported unaudited revenue of $54 million and adjusted PBT of $14 million in 2016, with year-on-year growth of 29% and 24% respectively, and had gross assets of $11 million at December 2016.

The company serves the consumer goods and services segment and operates from four offices in the U.S. Michael Kassan founded Medialink in 2003, he will continue to run the business.

Duncan Painter, Chief Executive Officer of Ascential plc, said: “MediaLink is a leader in its industry, with a strong and very visible brand presence in the US. MediaLink is an excellent fit with our existing Ascential offering and I am confident we can help accelerate MediaLink’s business into new markets by using our assets and infrastructure over the coming months and years. I see synergies between MediaLink and our portfolio of products to significantly help accelerate our existing businesses and create additional value for shareholders.”

UK, London & USA, New York, NY

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Be Heard Group acquires 75% of Freemavens for £1.7M

February 7, 2017 — Fusion DigiNet

be-heardBe Heard Group Plc, a digital marketing services group, is to acquire a 75% stake in Freemavens Limited, a marketing analytics and innovation consultancy specialising in the use of big data, for a total consideration of around £1.7m. 

For the financial year ended 31 December 2016 Freemavens delivered £1.72 million gross revenue and £0.41m adjusted EBITDA.

freemavensBe Heard will acquire 75% of Freemavens’ equity for £0.84m, that is £0.48m in cash and the issue of 9,303,766 new Be Heard shares. As part of the Acquisition, Be Heard will also repay Freemavens’ existing debt obligations of around £0.87m, due principally to the exiting majority shareholder Let‘s Go Crazy Limited, taking the total consideration to approximately £1.7m. 

The remaining 25% of Freemavens’ equity is being retained by its two founders, who are continuing with the business, and will be subject to a put and call option exercisable after four years, payable 50% in cash and 50% in new Be Heard shares, at a valuation of the lower of 2x historic revenue and 8x historic EBITDA. The maximum total consideration payable is £7.7m. 

Founded in 2012 by Andrej Moyseowicz and Christopher Palengat, Freemavens is an analytics and innovation consultancy which aims to solve clients’ business challenges and develop insights and actionable ideas using big data. The agency, with its 20-strong team, has developed several in-house data analytics tools and methodologies and has clients including Unilever, Barclays, Channel 4 and RNLI.

Peter Scott, Executive Chairman of Be Heard said: “The Freemavens team will give Be Heard industry leading analytics capability, and once bedded into our Group will augment and enhance the work we do for clients. Intelligent use of data underpins all decision making; our intention is to develop the analytics capability at Be Heard as a central function and resource for our clients. Bringing the exceptional Freemavens team into the fold is, I believe, a bold first step.”  

 Completion of the Acquisition is conditional upon completion of a cash placing to raise gross proceeds of £2.1m.

UK, London

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XLMedia acquires ClicksMob

February 7, 2017 — Fusion DigiNet

XLMediaXLMedia, a provider of digital performance marketing, is to acquire ClicksMob Inc, a mobile performance marketing platform for $5.1 million. The transaction was made through Dau-Up, XLMedia’s mobile marketing subsidiary. It is expected to complete during the first quarter of 2017.

ClicksMob generated unaudited revenues of $16.3 million and profit before tax of $0.3 million for year ended 31 December 2016.

ClicksMob delivers performance-based user acquisition to leading apps across a number of verticals, including gaming, e-commerce, travel, entertainment and finance. The addition of ClicksMob will provide Dau-Up with significant presence in Asia, with over 30% of ClicksMob 2016 revenues generated from the region.

As part of the transaction Dau-Up will acquire ClicksMob’s proprietary technologies such as audience matching, engine optimization and fraud fighting tools which will be integrated with Dau-Up’s own technology.

Ory Weihs, Chief Executive Officer of XLMedia, commented: “We are excited to announce the acquisition of ClicksMob, which combined with our own mobile marketing capabilities provides a significant future growth engine for the Group across key verticals.  This acquisition represents an excellent opportunity for XLMedia to further extend our reach in Asia in addition to strengthening our presence in North America. As mobile marketing becomes a driving force in the online marketing world, we see this as a strategic acquisition to further strengthen our offering in this important vertical.”

UK, London & Tel Aviv, Israel & St Helier, Jersey

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