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, Wolters Kluwer purchased XCM Solutions, Astute gained Socialbakers, and Nvidia reached an agreement to acquire ARM.
Wolters Kluwer gains XCM Solutions
Wolters Kluwer has completed an acquisition of XCM Solutions, a cloud-based service for professional tax and accounting firms. The deal has been valued at $136 million.
XCM will join Wolters’ Tax & Accounting division with the goal to integrate XCM’s software with Wolters’ own cloud-based software, CCH Axcess. Last year, XCM recorded approximately $19 million in revenue.
Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting has maintained a strategic partnership with XCM Solutions since 2006.
Astute purchases social media marketing company Socialbakers
Astute, Inc., a customer engagement platform, acquired AI-powered social media marketing company Socialbakers.
Astute will bring on the entire staff from Socialbakers, forming a combined company with over 600 employees and $100 million in annual revenue.
Socialbakers, founded in 2008, was one of the last independent players from the first wave of social media analytics, and is used by more than 2,500 brands around the world.
By acquiring Socialbakers, Astute plans to add social media-focused features such as audience insights, content planning, influencer marketing, and ad analytics. The deal follows Astute’s acquisition of Voice of Customer (VoC) company iperceptions in July to enhance its CRM software.
Nvidia agrees to acquire ARM Limited with cash and stock
NVIDIA Corporation announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire ARM Limited from SoftBank Group Corp. in a cash and stock transaction valued at $40 billion.
If completed, this deal would be the largest semiconductor deal of all time in terms of dollar value.
This deal will see Softbank receiving $12 billion in cash and $21.5 billion in NVIDIA stock, representing a sizable ownership stake.
Cambridge, U.K.-based ARM, which was acquired by Softbank in 2016 for $32 billion, makes semiconductor technology used in lots of smaller chips integrated into all kinds of computer systems and devices, and chips that are used in nearly every smartphone today.
For Nvidia, which is known for its graphics processors (GPU), integrating ARM’s CPU technology to its GPUs could boost its AI computing platform and its lead over the rest of the semiconductor industry in a time when most of the AI systems are trained on NVIDIA’s GPUs and specialized hardware and cloud services.
In Other News
Several big deals are brewing:
- Gilead announced that it will acquire biopharmaceutical company Immunomedics for $21 billion.
- MetLife Inc. has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the managed vision care company Versant Health for approximately $1.68 billion in cash.
- Verizon said it has entered into an agreement to acquire pre-paid mobile provider Tracfone from America Movil. The deal is worth more than $6 billion.
- According to Bloomberg News, U.S. private equity firm Platinum Equity is in talks to acquire electronics distributor Ingram Micro Inc. from Chinese aviation and shipping conglomerate HNA Group.
- ViacomCBS Inc. announced that it has agreed to sell its digital news publisher CNET Media Group to media and technology company Red Ventures LLC for $500 million.
- Drug price marketplace startup GoodRx Holdings Inc. announced that it has hired investment banks to sell up to $969.2 million worth of shares in its planned IPO.
- Snowflake Inc., a cloud data warehousing company with the backing of Salesforce and Warren Buffett went public on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday.
- In the competition over the acquisition of TikTok’s U.S. operations, dark horse Oracle Corp. edged out Microsoft and Walmart over the weekend and confirmed that it has struck a deal with the popular video-sharing app’s Chinese parent ByteDance Ltd. The discussion is still ongoing and may involve a long legal battle.
- Opendoor Labs Inc., an online platform that lets consumers quickly buy or sell houses, announced that it will go public through a merger with Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings II, a special-purpose acquisition company backed by venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya.
