B2B information. The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority might block marketing and analytics consultancy Ebiquity’s proposed sale of its advertising intelligence division AdIntel to the $7bn-revenue Nielsen in a £26m cash deal announced in April. The £90m-revenue, London-quoted Ebiquity and Nielsen now have until 20 June to offer up remedies to the competition concerns. In the absence of appropriate remedies, the CMA will launch an in-depth phase 2 investigation, which might just put everyone off – especially since the proceeds would have all but paid-off Ebiquity’s £30m debt. It was that kind of sale. Recent musings by cashed-up Martin Sorrell about his ambitions for analytics and data could just point towards a bid for the £33m-market-cap Ebiquity, a clever company, albeit one which is too sub-scale to be spread across 90 countries. It claims to provide services to 80 of the top 100 global advertisers. But last year’s flat revenues were the latest wobble. The 21-year-old company’s CEO brushed away the fears with “We achieved important milestones on our multi-year transformational journey…. to become the preferred, independent advisor to marketers at world-leading brands. We have a clear, focussed and differentiated destination and are implementing the relevant changes.” Sorrell and anyone’s grandmother would have seen right through that flim-flam – as have investors who have halved Ebiquity’s share price in the past 12 months. Time for Sir Martin’s first post-WPP deal?
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Will Sorrell pounce on Ebiquity ad data?
