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, anime streaming experienced a mega-merger between Sony and Crunchroll. Toll Brothers purchased StoryBook Homes to expand in Las Vegas Real Estate. And Peer5 joined Microsoft.
Sony’s Funimation gained anime streaming service Crunchyroll
This week Sony announced it completed a $1.175 billion acquisition of anime streaming service Crunchyroll from AT&T.
Crunchyroll currently has 5 million subscribers and over 120 million registered users, and will be integrated into Sony’s Funimation Global Group, LLC, the anime streaming service in which Sony bought a controlling stake for $143 million in 2017.
Combining Crunchyroll with Funimation will create the largest anime streaming platform, and the deal has been described as a “mega-merger.” Crunchyroll will expand Funimation into related markets such as manga, anime conventions and production companies.
Toll Brothers acquired Storybook Homes
Real estate giant Toll Brothers has finalized its acquisition of StoryBook Homes, a Las Vegas based home building company.
The deal gives Toll Brothers an opportunity to expand by adding 16 luxury home communities, containing over 1,700 homes in total around the Las Vegas area.
Toll Brothers president Gary Mayo commented that the deal is part of the company’s strategy to target the Las Vegas area and diversify home offerings and price points in that market.
StoryBook properties range from mid-$200,000 to over $600,000. Terms of the acquisition have not been disclosed, but the company announced that StoryBook employees will continue to remain with the company and operate under the StoryBook Homes brand.
Microsoft brings on Peer5 to improve eCDN services
Microsoft has completed its acquisition of Peer5; a move that reaffirms the business’s strategy to invest in its Microsoft Teams software which has gone through rapid expansion since the transition to remote work brought on by the pandemic.
Peer5, which launched in 2012, offers web real-time communication (WebRTC) solutions for optimizing video calls across various browsers.
Peer5’s own press release claims that integrating Peer5 enables Microsoft Teams to offer Enterprise Content Delivery Network (eCDN) without any extra installation, with increased privacy and security, “with a single mouse click.” Financial terms of the acquisition have not been made public.
In Other News
Other highlights from this week include:
- PLBY Group, the parent company of the Playboy brand and magazine, announced it has acquired Australian lingerie retailer Honey Birdette in a deal valued around $333 million.
- Online gaming and game development platform Roblox has acquired Bash Video, a developer of video conferencing software.
- Consumer stock trading and investment platform Robinhood announced that it has struck a deal to acquire Say Technologies, an investment platform for shareholder voting and communication.
- Consumer credit reporting agency Equifax Inc. announced that it is acquiring Appriss Insights, a portfolio company of Clearlake Capital Group, L.P., and Insight Partners.
- U.S. cybersecurity firm NortonLifeLock announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire British rival Avast in a cash and stock merger worth up to $8.6 billion.
- After owning Reebok for roughly 16 years, Adidas announced that it is selling the sneaker and sportswear brand to Authentic Brands Group for around $2.5 billion.
- According to the Wall Street Journal, AT&T’s WarnerMedia is in talks to sell its celebrity gossip site TMZ to Fox Corp.
