Criteo is subject to a takeover bid, further proving private equity’s continued interest in ad tech

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Criteo is the subject of a takeover approach, in yet another twist in the “will they, won’t they?” fate of the France-founded ad tech firm, which recently relocated its commercial base to Luxembourg, sparking further merger-and-acquisition speculation.

According to media reports, the recently submitted bid from private equity firms Vista Equity Partners and Quinti Capital jointly values the ad tech company at more than $50 per share, citing people familiar with the matter, boosting the company’s market capitalization, which fell 23% year-over-year prior to the speculation, to above $1 billion.

The offer represents a premium of more than 50% to Criteo’s recent share price and values the company at approximately $3.7 billion on an equity basis, per the initial Bloomberg report. Reuters subsequently reported that Criteo’s board has yet to respond to the proposal, while the bidders are said to view the company’s AI capabilities as an opportunity to expand retailers’ and advertisers’ use of its platform.

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Advertising’s confidence problem, according to the man who used to price its stocks

At an IAB Europe forecast panel yesterday (July 7), Ian Whittaker — a former City equity analyst who now runs Liberty Sky Advisors — dropped the kind of line that tends to go quiet in a room full of ad execs: “Advertising has lost its way.”

His reasoning is that four or five decades ago, there was a straight line from a business’s needs to what its agency did on its behalf. That line is gone. Advertising, he said, has become “self-absorbed” — an industry that talks to itself more than it talks to the businesses paying for it.

It’s a blunt assessment of a widespread practice — one that’s never short of example: Ad tech vendors spend entire conferences debating whether agentic AI will transact media autonomously. Brand-side finance teams haven’t been asked if they want it to. Holdcos tell Wall Street a story about AI-driven margin expansion and organic growth. Clients get a very different story about why their budgets keep getting squeezed. Agencies report up CPM, viewability and engagement. The CFO wants to know what it did for revenue. 

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