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, acquisitions span media properties, luxury properties and cloud technology.

New Media and Gannett Complete Merger

New Media Investment Group Inc. and Gannett Co., Inc.have jointly announced the successful completion of their merger. 

New Media’s purchase of Gannett was valued at approximately $1.1 billion, about $300 million less than its initial value at the time the deal was announced in August. 

Starting November 20, 2019, the combined company will operate under the Gannett Co. brand name; New Media will change its ticker symbol to GCI. New Media is one of the largest publishers of locally based print and online media in the United States, with 152 daily publications. New Media publications reach over 21 million people in the US on a weekly basis. Gannett Co produces content that reaches more than 125 million people monthly. This content includes more than 100 media brands, including USA TODAY.

Michelin Acquires Travel Agency Tablet

Michelin has acquired Tablet Inc., an online travel agency that provides a selection of luxury hotel options. 

The acquisition of Tablet will greatly strengthen Michelin’s business in the travel industry. The Tablet selection currently has 3,500 hotels to choose from; this selection of hotels includes reviews and descriptions to assist travellers in getting the best experience possible. 

Similar to Michelin, Tablet’s selection of hotels hold merit and can only be listed after rigorous evaluation. Laurent Vernhes and Michael Davis, co-founders of Tablet, said: “Michelin and Tablet share an unbiased approach to curation. Our dedication to integrity has made us leaders in our respective fields, and now we’re combining forces for a ground-breaking union that will change the scale of Tablet and transform the Tablet Plus program.”

Google Expands Cloud Computing With CloudSimple

After just a few months since announcing their partnership, Google has announced the acquisition of CloudSimple for an undisclosed amount. 

CloudSimple is a leading provider of dedicated environments for the operation of VMware workloads on the cloud. The acquisition of CloudSimple builds upon Google’s cloud-computing division. It’s a unit that Google has been assembling through various other acquisitions, including Alooma, a data integration company, Elastifile, a data storage company, and Velostrata, a cloud migration company. 

The string of acquisitions strengthens Google’s position as a competitor against the leading cloud platforms: Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. Although the Google Cloud Platform has a smaller market share than these FAANG+M competitors, the overall cloud unit has reached an impressive $8 billion annual run rate.

In Other News

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

• Hillenbrand, Inc. has announced the completed acquisition of Milacron Holdings Corp. The completed deal was valued at approximated $1.9 billion. 

• Nearly a year after announcing the controversial deal, the Federal Trade Commission finally greenlit the merger between pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb and cancer drug specialist Celgene Corporation. Per the terms and conditions of the deal, Bristol-Myers acquired the business of Celgene for $74 billion, with the exception of its psoriasis drug Otezla which the FTC required be divested upon completion of the deal. 

• Kylie Jenner has sold a majority stake (51%) in her namesake cosmetics line to beauty conglomerate Coty Inc. for $600 million. 

• The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. is acquiring the remaining interest it does not own in Have & Be Co. Ltd., the South Korean company behind skin care brands Dr. Jart+ and Do The Right Thing. 

• VC giant SoftBank has entered into an agreement through which its subsidiary Z Holdings, Yahoo Japan’s parent company, will merge with LINE Corporation, the Tokyo-based subsidiary of South Korean internet search engine Naver Corporation.  

• Paypal is making a foray into the online shopping space with its announced acquisition of Honey Science Corporation, also known as Honey, the popular money saving service in the form of app or browser extension. The deal is priced at $4 billion, the largest acquisition in PayPal’s history. 

• Online securities brokerage companies Charles Schwab and TD Ameritrade are rumored to be merging. According to sources, Schwab will offer $26 billion for TD Ameritrade.