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, Global Payments becomes even more global, Nexstar becomes the biggest local TV broadcaster in the US, and Yelp could be acquired by Groupon. 

Global Payments Expands Again With Acquisition of Total System Services

Global Payments has completed its $21.5 billion all-stock merger with Total System Services. 

The financial technology service provider will integrate Total System Services’ credit card payment processing systems to create a “technology-enabled payments company with extensive scale and unmatched global reach.” The acquisition gives Global Payments a more rounded business platform, handing both merchant and bank sides of every card payment transaction. 

The new Global Payments will now serve 3.5 million merchants, 1,300 financial institutions, and 600 million cardholders, facilitating approximately $50 billion of transactions annually. 

Nexstar Acquires Tribune Media for $7 Billion

Nexstar Media Group, Inc.announced that it has completed its acquisition of Tribune Media Company for $7.2 billion including debt, making it the biggest local TV broadcaster in the US. 

With this deal, Nexstar will establish an even stronger presence in the top markets in the nation, including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. It will also pick up WGN America and a 31 percent stake in Discovery’s Food Network. 

The combined company will own 197 TV stations in 115 markets covering 39 percent of the U.S. households — the maximum reach the Federal Communications Commission allows for a single owner. 

Rumor Mill: Yelp Could Be Acquired by Groupon

According to the Chicago Tribune, Groupon may be looking to make potential acquisitions in an effort to boost value and earnings. It’s rumored that online review site Yelp might be a good fit. 

Groupon has been underperforming in recent years and shareholders have been unhappy with both the financial performance and stock price of the deals site. Groupon’s stock price has been trading in the range of $2 – $4 in 2019, significantly less than its all-time closing high of $26.19 in November 2011. 

A combination of the two could generate a cost synergy of $200 million and create a platform where consumers can purchase goods and services and make reviews on merchants at the same time. 

In Other News

These are some other notable deals and developments from the past week:

• The lighting and building management firm, Acuity Brands, Inc. has announced it acquired lighting manufacturers platform Luminaries Group from Sentinel Capital Partners. 

• Microsoft subsidiaryGitHub, a hosting company for software development version control, has announced it acquired San Francisco based startup Semmle, a code analysis tool. 

• Process Systems Enterprise, a London-based supplier of Advanced Process Modeling software and services, has announced it anticipates to be acquired by Siemens AG in a deal scheduled to close in the fourth quarter of 2019.  

• Electronic components and embedded solutions distributor Avnet announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire embedded software company Witekio, formerly known as Adeneo Embedded. 

• Enterprise software company Datadog officially debuted as a public company on NASDAQ on Thursday, soaring as much as 50% to $41.44.