In keeping with our mission to provide comprehensive advertising analysis, MediaRadar puts together a report of the most important mergers and acquisitions news each week. Stay in the loop, whether you sell advertising space or focus on business development.
This week, Onex Corporation acquired WestJet Airlines, Hasbro acquired children’s media company Entertainment One, and VMware acquired Pivotal Software.
WestJet Airlines Acquired By Onex Corporation
Investment manager Onex Corporation has acquired Canadian airline WestJet Airlines Ltd. in a transaction valued at approximately $5 billion.
Onex Corporation manages approximately $33 billion in assets and generates approximately $28 billion in annual revenue. WestJet Airlines flies to over 175 destinations in over 20 countries, and has been recognized for the past 3 consecutive years as Best Airline in Canada.
Hasbro Acquired Children’s Entertainment Company
Toy and board game producer Hasbro has completed an acquisition of Entertainment One (eOne) in a $4 billion all-cash deal.
Hasboro has eyes on eOne’s long-running animated children’s television series “Peppa Pig” as a potentially highly profitable merchandised preschool brand.
It also plans to capitalize on eOne’s production and distribution infrastructure as a pipeline to expand its own brands of television and merchandise products. These include “Transformers,” “My Little Pony” and the board game Monopoly.
Pivotal Software Acquired by VMware
Software company, VMware has announced the completion of the cloud-native platform provider, Pivotal Software. The deal has been struck for $2.7 billion.
Acquiring Pivotal enables VMware to expand from its current state as a virtual machine company into a cloud-native offering vendor.
Dell Technologies is a majority shareholder of VMware. Pivotal went public in 2018, but following a poor earnings report in June, the stock tanked by 42 percent in one day. VMware rescued the struggling company by offering $15 a share.
In Other News
These are some other notable deals and developments from the past week:
- Private equity firm Thoma Bravo announced that it has finalized its acquisition of J.D. Power, a global leader in data analytics and consumer intelligence.
- Communications and security products supplier Anixter International Inc announced that it has reached an agreement to be acquired by investment firm Clayton, Dubilier and Rice LLC (CD&R) in an all-cash $4.3 billion deal.
According to analysts at PitchBook, “IPO market is likely to remain steady next year, there will be fewer splashy listings coming to market, and premium valuations are going to be reserved for companies with a very clear path to profitability.” There are five notable companies that fit the profile and are likely to make their way into the public markets in 2020; they are Airbnb, Capser, Didi Chuxing, DoorDash and Robinhood.
