(Il Sole 24 Ore Radiocor) - Milano, 18 mag - French advertising company Publicis said it has entered into an agreement to acquire global collaboration platform LiveRamp for a total enterprise value of 2.2 billion dollars as the group advances its investment in technology, data, and AI-services to unlock new opportunities for the agentic era.

Under the terms of the agreement, Publicis will acquire LiveRamp for 38.50 dollars per share, a 29.8% premium to LiveRamp's closing share price on May 15 the last trading day prior to the announcement of the agreement. The transaction represents a total equity value of 2.546 billion dollars and includes acquired net cash of 379 million dollars.

The acquisition is expected to be accretive to Publicis' headline EPS from the first year of consolidation, excluding transaction-related costs The deal will allow Publicis to expand its addressable market, allowing it to raise its 2027-2028 objectives on net revenue and headline EPS growth at constant currency. The French group increased its 2027 and 2028 constant currency growth objectives to 7-8% for net revenue and 8-10% for headline EPS, versus previous objectives of 6-7% and 7-9%, respectively.

Publicis confirmed its 2026 guidance of a 4-5% net revenue organic growth, slight improvement in operating margin rate compared with 18.2% in 2025 and record free cashflow before change in working capital requirements of circa 2.1 billion euros.

LiveRamp is a global data collaboration platform that enables companies to unify, manage, and activate data across the digital ecosystem.

Interoperable by design, it connects over 25,000 publisher domains and 500+ technology and data partners across 14 markets, and enables thousands of brands, retailers, media platforms, and data providers to collaborate and connect data effectively, efficiently and securely.

LiveRamp transforms fragmented and disconnected data into an enterprise-grade, unified, and actionable data asset built for insight, activation, and measurement.

The transaction has been unanimously approved by the boards.

of both Publicis and LiveRamp.

(RADIOCOR) 18-05-26 08:10:57 (0066) 5 NNNN