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, HP acquires a key player in supercomputing, international J2 Acquisitions purchases APi Group to get listed in New York, and Taboola and Outbrain combine their ad tech forces.
Hewlett Packard Invests in High Performance Computing
Tech giant Hewlett Packard Enterprises has completed its acquisition of supercomputer manufacturer Cray Inc.
The deal cost HPE $35 per share for a grand total of approximately $1.4 billion.
This investment showcases HPE’s ambition to dominate the growing market of high performance computing (HPC) that has been fueled by data-driven companies looking to advance their business through artificial intelligence, machine learning, and big-data analysis.
Cray is expected to enhance HPE’s HPC and AI portfolio as well as increase their R&D infrastructure. The terms of the deal also include bringing on Cray president and CEO Peter Ungaro as the head of HPE’s HPC and AI business unit: Hybrid IT.
J2 Acquires APi Group Ahead of Stock Listing
J2 has announced its acquisition of the commercial life safety solutions and industrial specialty services company APi Group Inc.
The deal has been struck to the tune of approximately $2.9 billion, and has been made ahead of J2’s plans to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the stock ticker symbol APG.
The combined company will be known as APi Group Corp. APi expects to deliver around $4 billion in revenue. J2 plans to leave the APi management in place while focusing on organic growth. J2 co-founder James E. Lillie commented: “We were immediately impressed by APi’s management team, its strong culture, and its commitment to leadership development, combined with consistent delivery of margins and cash flow at the high end of its peer group over the years.”
Taboola and Outbrain Consolidate Ad Tech Capabilities
New York-based adtech and digital native advertising companies Taboola and Outbrain announced that they are combining forces to rival big tech companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon.
Taboola and Outbrain both operate native advertising for publishers. Native ads typically appear in the form of featured articles by the publications themselves or sponsored stories from other sites (served by these ad tech companies).
Upon completion of the $2 billion deal, the combined entity will operate under the name Taboola until subsequent rebranding takes effect. Both companies believe that by joining forces, they bring benefits to publishers and advertisers with a consolidated technology platform, which will help them reach more media buyers.
In Other News
These are some other notable deals and developments from the past week:
- Nasdaq Inc. has completed its acquisition of the corporate governance and compliance software company Center for Board Excellence (CBE). The deal comes a couple years after the multinational stock market operator entered a partnership with CBE along with their own division of Nasdaq Governance Solutions to automate the work of assessments and other time-consuming tasks prone to human error.
- Internet health information provider WebMD has announced plans to acquire medical education platform, Aptus Health. WebMD specifically has its eyes on Aptus Health’s flagship brand, Univadis, a service for healthcare providers that gives free, customized news and updates from the medical field in topics selected by its 4 million users in 91 different countries.
- Logitech has announced their agreement to acquire the live streaming platform Streamlabs OBS for approximately $89 million in cash.
- Canadian national telecommunications company TELUS has announced their agreement to acquire ADT Security Services Canada for approximately $700 million CAD. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2019.
- Two of the biggest online betting brands — Flutter Entertainment, owner of Paddy Power, and The Stars Group, owner of PokerStars — have announced that they have reached an agreement to merge. The agreement will allow Flutter to acquire Stars for $6 billion. The two companies currently have a combined market valuation of $12 billion with more than 13 million active customers in more than 100 markets worldwide.
- Home-sharing and vacation rental company Airbnb announced in September that it intends to go public in 2020. Although the company did not release any details for the plan beyond the announcement, it is worth noting that it made more than $1 billion in revenue in the second quarter of this year. Airbnb is currently valued by private investors at $31 billion.
