The Delaware Chancery Court might want to mark that Oct. 17 trial date for Twitter’s lawsuit against potential acquirer Elon Musk in pencil and not pen, as Musk reinstated his original bid of $54.20 per share for the company. People familiar with the matter told Jef Feeley, Ed Hammond and Kurt Wagner of Bloomberg that…
Reddit acqui-hired the four-person team at Oterlu, a developer of machine-learning-powered content moderation tools that was co-founded by former Google trust and safety lead Alex Gee. The Oterlu team will join the safety team at Reddit and develop native machine-learning moderation models to and accurately detect harmful content across a range of languages, as well…
Havas Media Group U.K. has strengthened its “meaningful media” offer with the acquisition of Edinburgh-based content agency Additive+ which develops “media experiences.” Founded in 2020 by Richard Gill (who co-founded iProspect’s Edinburgh office) and Jack Few, the agency’s client base spans both the U.K. and the U.S. with Heineken, Netflix and Jacobs Douwe Egberts among…
Britain’s competition watchdog has identified “potential concerns” around the $68.7 billion deal agreed by Microsoft to acquire Activision Blizzard and how it may hurt the U.K. industry. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has claimed that the acquisition could “substantially lessen” competition in the gaming sector around gaming console sales, multi-game subscription services and cloud…
The world’s largest agency network WPP has acquired e-commerce consultancy Newcraft to strengthen the online retail capabilities within Wunderman Thompson. The Netherlands-based business, which works with clients such as Ahold Delhaize, Pon Holdings, Yakult and JDE Peet’s, supports companies to reach their growth targets through digital means. The staff of 155 people, based in Amsterdam…
The subscription management platform Zuora has reached an agreement to acquire Zephr, a company that provides personalized paywall software to publishers, for $44 million in an all-cash deal, Adweek has learned. The deal is expected to close in early September. The purchase agreement includes an additional $6 million in earnout considerations if Zephr can reach…
Ad-tech firms DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science were subpoenaed by lawyers representing Elon Musk in his defense against a lawsuit by Twitter regarding his aborted $44 billion takeover bid for the company. Advertisers use technology from DoubleVerify and IAS to ensure that their ads are being viewed by actual people and not bots, and Musk’s…
Netherlands founded advertising services firm Dept has bolstered its U.K. business with the acquisition of ShopTalk–the brand and design experience studio, which works with clients such as Arm, Heinz, Innocent and Pi?ch. The acquisition of the 15-people strong London business will see the creative practice become co-branded as ShopTalk/Dept and continue to operate under its…
Mergers and acquisitions can be messy affairs. And if you’ve been following the saga of M&C Saatchi you’ll have noticed almost daily alerts on the two suitors chasing it for acquisition. The creative agency, which seems not entirely keen on the possibility of a sale, currently has bids from two companies–with no conclusion in sight…
Stagwell is expanding its media network by moving more of its agencies under the Stagwell Media Network (SMN) structural umbrella, including Forsman & Bodenfors, Crispin Porter Bogusky, Vitro and Observatory. The change is effective today and comes as SMN posted 33% net revenue growth in the second quarter, making it Stagwell’s fastest-growing network. In the…
The acquisition for British headquartered ad-tech platform Iponweb has been completed by Criteo in a deal worth less than the original $380 million that was initially agreed upon. Global commerce media company Criteo proposed the agreement to accelerate its commerce media platform strategy targeting enterprise marketers while offering further monetization opportunities for media owners, including…
The Brandtech Group, formerly You & Mr Jones, is in negotiations to acquire digital marketing company Jellyfish. Top line Launched in 2005, Jellyfish currently holds a client roster that includes Google Marketing Platform, Google Cloud, Salesforce, Amazon, and Facebook. The talks come two-and-a-half years after Jellyfish received and investment of $612 million (500 million pounds)…
JetBlue Airways has acquired Spirit Airlines for $3.8 billion. The news comes less than a day after Spirit and Frontier called off a proposal to merge. New York-based JetBlue has been charting a course toward this merger for some time now. The airline was sued by the Department of Justice in September over a proposed…
Regulators have raised competition concerns over a proposed merger between French media holding companies Groupe TF1 and Groupe M6–owned by Groupe Bouygues–and RTL Group (part of German multinational Bertelsmann), particularly around the impact on the advertising market. The two companies had agreed a merger to form a broadcasting giant in March in a deal that…
Twitter said in a Schedule 14A form filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission Tuesday that it called a special meeting of shareholders Sept. 13 at 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. PT to vote on Elon Musk’s $44 billion agreement to acquire the company. The company said in its filing that its board of directors unanimously…
Online streaming and TV channel Premier Sports, which streams live games across the U.K., has been acquired by Nordic entertainment company Viaplay Group as it prepares to enter the market in autumn. Premier Sports currently holds the rights to stream games across soccer tournaments, such as UEFA nations league, La Liga, the Scottish Cup and…
Twitter asked Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick, chief judge of the Delaware Chancery Court, for a four-day trial in September in its bid to force Elon Musk to go through with his $44 billion acquisition of the company. Musk asked for a 10-day trial next February. McCormick’s ruling fell somewhere in the middle. The judge…
After buying Twitter for $44 billion earlier this year, world’s richest man Elon Musk seems to have cold feet and is using the issue of bots on the platform as a convenient excuse to exit the deal. Musk is citing material breach as the reason he should be released from the deal. He’s saying there…
Twitter fired back at Elon Musk in a strongly worded letter, saying, “Twitter has breached none of its obligations under the agreement,” and adding, “Twitter demands that Mr. Musk and the other Musk parties comply with their obligations under the agreement.” The letter was penned by Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz litigation department co-chair William…
There have not been many tweets from Twitter employees discussing Elon Musk’s decision to back out of acquiring the company, and there’s a reason for that. Once news broke late Friday of Musk’s about-face, Twitter general counsel Sean Edgett said in an email to employees, obtained by Mitchell Clark and Alex Heath of The Verge,…
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