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, Accenture kept its buying behaviors up by gaining Root. SiriusXM made another podcast purchase—99% Invisible. And Xerox made another acquisition—Groupe C.T.
Accenture Acquires Management Consulting Company Root
Accenture has acquired the management consulting company Root Inc.
Following the closure of the deal, Root joined Accenture’s Talent & Organization / Human Potential team to reinforce its organizational change management capabilities. It will add new “experiential and digital assets to engage people intellectually and emotionally and do so rapidly and at scale,” according to the press release.
The financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed.
Accenture is a professional services provider that works with companies across industries including banking, communications, health, technology, insurance, retail, travel, and more.
This acquisition of Root continues Accenture’s buying spree. The company has spent $1.1 billion between September last year and February on 19 different acquisitions.
SiriusXM invests more in podcasting by purchasing 99% Invisible
SiriusXM has acquired 99% Invisible Inc, the producer of the radio show and podcast with the same name.
The show, created and hosted by Roman Mars, focuses on design, infrastructure, and architecture. Following the acquisition, 99% Invisible will become part of the satellite radio’s podcasting division Stitcher, which SiriusXM acquired in October last year for $325 million.
Going forward, Mars will continue producing new episodes of 99% Invisible as well as new side projects. The extensive library will be available for free on Sitcher’s ad-supported platform, or ad-free for premium subscribers at $4.99 per month.
According to a New York Times article, Mars views the deal as an opportunity to focus on content creation and “free himself from administrative duties and to secure greater resources for his staff.”
The intricacies of the podcasting industry could be difficult to keep up with, with rapid consolidation putting pressure on smaller companies. The ad market for podcasts last year reached only $708 million in revenue, a relatively small rate compared to social media ads which brought in approximately $36 billion.
Xerox gains document management provider Groupe C.T.
Xerox has acquired Groupe CT, an independent document management provider based in Eastern Canada.
The deal is the company’s second acquisition of a Canadian Small and Midsize Business (SMB) company in the last year, following Xerox’s purchase of Digitex in March 2020.
Digitex was the largest independent services, software, and technology provider in Western Canada. This deal furthers Xerox’s growth in the North American SMB market.
Adding Groupe CT’s document management services to Xerox’s portfolio of workplace solutions will bolster the company’s service capabilities for SMB’s. Financial terms of the deal have not been made public.
In Other News
What else is happening?
- IBM announced on Thursday a definitive agreement to acquire Turbonomic, a company that provides tools to manage application performance, specializing in resource management.
- Stripe, Inc., a privately-held payments company, announced that it has acquired a cloud-based tax service, TaxJar. TaxJar, launched in 2013 and provides 23,000 business customers with a suite of tax solutions to comply with the constantly changing tax code requirements.
- Health insurance company Humana Inc. is buying out two investors to take full control of Kindred at Home, a home-health provider.
- British consumer goods giant Unilever Plc announced that it is acquiring Onnit, a holistic wellness and lifestyle company based in Austin, Texas.
- Mastercard announced that it is acquiring identity verification solutions provider Ekata, Inc. for $850 million.
- Internet Brands, a KKR portfolio company and owner of WebMD Health Corp. announced that it is acquiring PulsePoint Inc.
- KKR & Co. Inc., a leading global investment firm, today announced that Nestlé has agreed to acquire The Bountiful Company, a leader in global nutrition, for $5.75 billion.
- According to Bloomberg, AT&T is exploring the sale of its video production company Rooster Teeth, a unit of its WarnerMedia division.
- According to The Wall Street Journal, Verizon Communications Inc. is exploring a sale of its digital media business, including brands such as AOL and Yahoo.
- According to The New York Times, trendy shoe brand Allbirds is reportedly in talks with multiple banks in preparation for an initial public offering.
