David Jones’ Brantech Group has closed its deal to purchase Fimalac-backed digital company Jellyfish – after 18 months of making an attempt. Fimalac will get an undisclosed stake in Brandtech and two seats on the board.
So is that this a merger in all however identify? In spite of everything if it seems like a merger, walks like a merger and talks like a merger then….Laborious to make certain, after all, with out realizing the Fimalac stake.
Fimalac, based and nonetheless owned by French magnate Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière, has fingers in lots of pies together with actual property. It’s slightly just like the Bolloré empire, which owns a controlling stake in Vivendi (together with Havas) and far else moreover.
However its media and tech pursuits could now be aligned with Brandtech which has did not develop considerably in media since organising its personal media operation headed by former Mindshare CEO Nick Emery. In that respect it’s like Sir Martin Sorrell’s S4 Capital which remains to be largely constructed across the Media.Monks digital content material enterprise. Brandtech owns in-housing specialist company Oliver.
Brandtech claims the deal creates the primary digital-only advertising group on this planet with greater than $1bn in income, over 7,000 staff, working for eight out of 10 of the world’s largest advertisers.
Jones (above with new Brandtech workforce) says: “I first met Rob (Pierre, Jellyfish founder) again in 2016 and it’s been extremely spectacular to see what he and the workforce have constructed over time. Each corporations are trade disruptors at international scale, each constructed on founder power, and each are obsessive about fixing our purchasers’ largest advertising challenges.
“And we additionally share the assumption that know-how is the important thing to doing this. I’m clearly enthusiastic about bringing them into the group however much more excited for what we are actually going to have the ability to ship for our purchasers. And I’m thrilled to welcome Fimalac as shareholders and board members.”
Emery, who now heads Jellyfish, says: “David (Jones) introduced me in to assist construct a brand new age international advertising and media operation for the Group. Jellyfish not solely delivers actual international scale in digital media but additionally considerably enhances our information, know-how and content material capabilities, with extra to come back.”
Digital could about have taken over the advertising and media world however the world’s greater corporations nonetheless appear reluctant to entrust all their enterprise to a digital-first entity. Brandtech now has extra scale however will or not it’s sufficient to vary their minds?
