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, Looker comes under Google’s umbrella and Insight Partners makes gains in IoT security with Armis. After facing legal battles, T-Mobile and Sprint are making strides towards their merger. 

Google Acquires Looker – But Looker to Continue Supporting Multiple Cloud Vendors

Google has acquired business intelligence software company Looker for $2.6 billion, and the solution has been integrated as part of the Google Cloud Platform. 

The acquisition will provide Looker with expanded resources including BigQuery, which enables customers to address business challenges faster. 

Frank Bien, the CEO at Looker was quick to reassure that despite joining with Google, the analytics arm of the company will remain committed to supporting multiple cloud vendors beyond Google. The deal has been approved by international competition authorities which found that the deal would not increase prices or harm rivals’ access to data. 

Insight Partners expands its portfolio with Armis

Armis, the leader in enterprise IoT security, has been acquired by Insight Partners for $1.1 billion, with a $100 million participation from CapitalG – a venture capital fund financed by Alphabet Inc. 

Insight Partners is a leading global venture capital and private equity firm that has invested in more than 300 companies worldwide. In 2019, F-Secure Corporation, a Finnish cybersecurity company, showed that the number of cyberattacks has tripled since 2018. 

By 2021, there will be 25 billion connected devices; up to 90% of those devices will be unmanaged and unsecured, Based on these metrics, Insight Partners has strongly positioned itself to benefit from the growing demand for better security of devices.

T-Mobile and Sprint Get a Go Ahead

Earlier this week, a U.S. federal judge approved the $26.5 billion pending merger between T-Mobile US Inc. and Sprint Corp., defeating a state-led lawsuit seeking to block the deal. 

The share price of both wireless companies soared after the announcement, with Sprint’s share price surged by 78%. 

The combined company will operate under the T-Mobile name with a combined regular monthly user of 80 million, which will overtake AT&T’s 75 million user base, but still trail behind Verizon’s 114 million. 

It has been seven years since the first attempted merger by T-Mobile and Sprint. Both companies attempted some form of mergers in 2013 and 2017, but they were both rejected by regulators. 

The current favorable ruling comes two years after the boards of both companies struck a deal in 2018, citing that a combined company is required to compete with industry leaders Verizon and AT&T in the age of 5G.

In Other News

These aren’t the only developments from the past week. Here are several other noteworthy deals and announcements:

• IAC has completed its acquisition of Care.com, Inc in an all-cash transaction totaling approximately $500 million. 

• CGE Risk Management Solutions, leading provider of risk management software, has been acquired by Wolters Kluwer. Wolters Kluwer provides software solutions and services for the health, tax and accounting, governance, risk and compliance, and legal and regulatory sectors. 

• Cox Enterprises Inc. has agreed to purchase three Ohio newspapers from Cox Media Group (“CMG”), the Dayton Daily News, the Springfield News-Sun, and JournalNews. The sale is being forced by a federal court decision which cites an FCC rule prohibiting a single owner from operating both a daily newspaper and a broadcast station in the same market. 

• The commercial real estate information and analytics company CoStar Group, Inc. has agreed to acquire RentPath for $588 million in cash. 

• Infosys, an India-based global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting, has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Simplus. Simplus is a provider of advisory and management services for company-wide transformations with Salesforce. 

• McClatchy, the publisher of the Miami Herald and The Charlotte Observer (among others) has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.