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, Hewlett Packard Enterprise gained Silver Peak and Dotdash acquired two food websites: Simply Recipes and Serious Eats Media. Plus, Illumina plans to acquire Grail.
Hewlett Packard gains Silver Peak
Hewlett Packard Enterprise acquired the software company Silver Peak for $925 million.
The deal gives Hewlett Packard a variety of new SD-WAN capabilities to take on its long-time rival Cisco Systems. Silver Peak was recently named a Gartner Magic Quadrant leader in WAN Edge Infrastructure for the second consecutive year. Silver Peak’s SD-WAN technology will be integrated into HPE’s subsidiary Aruba.
The deal, according to HPE president and CEO Antonio Neri, “will accelerate the delivery of a true distributed cloud model and cloud experience for all apps and data wherever they live.”
As part of the acquisition, Silver Peak founder and CEO David Huges will join Hewlett Packard as the senior vice president of the WAN business.
Dotdash purchases Simply Recipes and Serious Eats Media
Digital publisher Dotdash announced it has completed an acquisition of food blog/recipe websites Serious Eats and Simply Recipes from Fexy Media.
Dotdash’s portfolio of brands includes websites such as Investopedia, Byrdie, and Verywell, among others. The deal with Fexy is Dotdash’s fifth acquisition since 2019.
Simply Recipes and Serious Eats reach a combined audience of over 16 million viewers per month. The 27 employees of the websites will all join Dotdash’s team as part of the deal.
Dotdash’s CEO Neil Vogel intends to invest in both media properties. The acquisition makes Dotdash one of the top three largest food and recipe publishers online. Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed.
In June Dotdash was named 2020 publisher of the year in the Digiday Media Awards.
Illumina will acquire Grail
Illumina, maker of DNA sequencing machines, will acquire the cancer detection startup Grail for $8 billion in cash ($3.5 billion) and stock ($4.5 billion). Grail originally spun out of Ilumina in 2016 with deep-pocket financial backers including Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos.
Illumina currently owns 14.5% of Grail’s outstanding shares, making the total value of the purchase for Grail around $7 billion.
Cancer screening is a $100 billion market and continues to grow rapidly. Grail’s machines take blood samples to detect the early, free-floating cancer DNA floating in the bloodstream.
The company filed paperwork with the SEC to go public earlier this month, and as part of the deal, the two companies have signed a $315 million merger termination agreement.
In Other News
There are many more noteworthy deals and developments this week:
- E.W. Scripps has announced a deal to acquire ION Media from Black Diamond Capital Management for $2.65 billion.
- Curtiss-Wright Corporation has entered into an agreement to acquire Pacific Star Communications (PacStar) for $400 million in cash.
- Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company Ericsson will acquire LTE and 5G technology provider Cradlepoint in a deal valued around $1.1 billion.
- Accenture plc announced that it is acquiring Atlanta-based inside sales firm N3 from private equity firm RedBird Capital Partners.
- Microsoft Corporation announced that it is acquiring video game studio ZeniMax Media for $7.5 billion in cash.
- According to the Wall Street Journal, short-form video startup Quibi is exploring several strategic options including a possible sale.
- According to Reuters, Playboy Enterprises is close to a deal to go public through a merger with Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp., also known as a (SPAC) special-purpose acquisition company.
- Video game software developer Unity Software Inc. debuted on the New York Stock Exchange last Friday following a flurry of successful tech IPOs including Snowflake, Inc. and JFrog Ltd.
- A month after filing for an Initial Public Offering, computer hardware company Corsair Gaming, Inc. is now listed on NASDAQ after raising $238 million.
