July was another exciting month in terms of M&A transactions and activity. We noted 74 deals in the marketing services space – the highest monthly volume since the start of 2020 and continuing the recent upward trend.
We anticipate good ongoing levels of M&A activity in the space as private equity appetite remains high alongside an increasingly active strategic buyer landscape. Strategic acquirers transacted on 65 deals in July – a marked increase on recent months.
In July, 25 targets were acquired in North America, 13 in the UK and 15 in western Europe. We highlight a number of interesting deals:
- TRGT was acquired by Sideshow Group, which itself took investment from Waterland Private Equity in February. TRGT is one of the UK and Europe’s fastest-growing performance marketing agencies with a modern remote model. We will certainly see more acquisitions from Sideshow as it scales over the coming months.
- Bliss Point Media was acquired by New Mountain Capital-backed Tinuiti. Bliss Point is an ecommerce marketing company in the direct-to-consumer space.
There was also continued activity from traditional marketing holding companies, with Publicis Groupe acquiring creative agency Boomerang in the Netherlands and Dentsu combining with US-based LiveArea, which specialises in customer experience and commerce.
James Kesner is director at Results International
Campaign works with Results International on M&A analysis for Campaign's Advertising Intelligence, which tracks the latest new-business activity in the industry. Find out more here
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