PARIS: French advertising agency Publicis said Monday it had bought US digital marketing specialists Sapient in a $3.7bn (¤2.95bn) deal.
Publicis, whose attempts to merge with US group Omnicom and create the world’s biggest advertising company failed earlier this year, said it had agreed to pay $25 a share for Boston-based Sapient.
The French group said that in acquiring Sapient, its digital operations now represented more than half its business “three years before the goal set out in our strategic plan”.
The failure of the Omnicom deal, which would have created an advertising giant to overtake Britain’s WPP employing 130,000 staff with annual sales of 20 billion euros, led to a boardroom shake-up at Publicis.
Sapient, a pioneer of Internet-based technology, had turnover of $1.36bn and profits of $85.9m in its last financial year.
On Friday, speculation about the imminent Publicis deal pushed Sapient’s shares up 2.79 percent to $17.32 on the Nasdaq.
DUBAI: Daman Investments, a United Arab Emirates investment management firm, said yesterday it planned to list on the Dubai Financial Market during the first quarter of 2015.
Dubai-based Daman will sell new shares equivalent to 55 percent of the firm to the public, with proceeds from the flotation to be used to expand its existing business and to fund new opportunities in its home market and the wider region, a statement distributed at a media event said. Emirates Investment Bank has been appointed financial adviser and lead manager of the offer, with law firm White & Case acting as legal adviser, the statement added.
DUBAI: Zain, Kuwait’s No.1 telecoms firm by subscribers, posted a 13 percent fall in third-quarter profit yesterday, missing analysts’ estimates due to foreign exchange losses and Iraq’s civil war disrupting its operations in the country.
The former monopoly, which operates in eight countries in the Middle East and Africa, made a net profit of KD46m ($158m) in the three months to Sept. 30 versus KD53m in the prior-year period, it said in a statement.
Analysts polled by Reuters on average forecast Zain would make a quarterly profit of KD60.1m.
The firm had posted falling profits in six of the preceding eight quarters as tougher competition at home, service interruptions in war-torn Iraq and a steep drop in the value of Sudan’s currency weighed on the bottom line.
Agencies
