Boston, MA 09/02/2014 (wallstreetpr) – The France-based advertising agency, Publicis Groupe, had reportedly termed the reports of it acquiring another start-up online ad company, Criteo SA (ADR) (NASDAQ:CRTO) as baseless.
Denies Acquisition
On Friday, French media had reported that Publicis was in negotiations with Criteo SA (ADR) (NASDAQ:CRTO) to acquire it. However, Reuters reported quoting sources close to Publicis that there was no evidence of such a discussion taking place. Following the reports of Publicis Groupe’s discussion to buy Paris-based Criteo, shares of Criteo witnessed 22.5% uptick on Friday’s regular trading.
Publicis Interest To Buy
The Chief Executive Officer of Publicis, Maurice Levy, had made his intentions clear recently that it was not averse to buy a smaller company. The CEO comments came following the company’s aborted bid to $35 billion merger with the America-based Omnicom Group Inc. (NYSE:OMC) earlier this year, Bloomberg reported. The market cap of Criteo of around $1.8 billion before the report came in seemed to have been well within the range of Publicis.
The report of Les Echos indicated that Publicis had initiated talks to acquire Criteo SA (ADR) (NASDAQ:CRTO) some three months back, and the discussions would be concluded in the coming days without quoting the source of information. However, Bloomberg said that the spokesperson for both the companies have refused to comment on the subject.
Digital Ad Segment
Advertising agencies are trying to buy companies that are focused on the digital format to drive growth to offset the fall in revenue expectations in some of the European, as well as, emerging nations amidst challenging economies. Publicis’ digital operations represented 41% of its sales during the first six-month period of the current calendar year compared to 37% in the same period last year.
On the other hand, Criteo SA (ADR) (NASDAQ:CRTO), which was started in 2005, had delivered 63% uptick in revenue during the first half of the current year from the year-ago six-month period.
