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67-498: Brandwatch is a social media suite company owned by Cision . Brandwatch sells two different products: Consumer Intelligence and Social Media Management. Consumer Intelligence is made up of three different products: Consumer Research and add-ons Vizia and Reviews. Consumer Research archives social media data from 100 million online sources to provide companies with the means to conduct market research and analyse their brands' online presence among other use cases. Social Media Management

134-679: A monopoly ", and the Hart–Scott–Rodino Act requires notifying the U.S. Department of Justice 's Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission about any merger or acquisition over a certain size. An acquisition/takeover is the purchase of one business or company by another company or other business entity. Specific acquisition targets can be identified through myriad avenues, including market research, trade expos, sent up from internal business units, or supply chain analysis. Such purchase may be of 100%, or nearly 100%, of

201-405: A business retain just a handful of key players that would have otherwise left. Organizations should move rapidly to re-recruit key managers. It's much easier to succeed with a team of quality players that one selects deliberately rather than try to win a game with those who randomly show up to play. Mergers and acquisitions often create brand problems, beginning with what to call the company after

268-555: A business, which accrues to both categories of stakeholders, is called the Enterprise Value (EV), whereas the value which accrues just to shareholders is the Equity Value (also called market capitalization for publicly listed companies). Enterprise Value reflects a capital structure neutral valuation and is frequently a preferred way to compare value as it is not affected by a company's, or management's, strategic decision to fund

335-473: A function of their acquisition activity. Therefore, additional motives for merger and acquisition that may not add shareholder value include: The M&A process itself is a multifaceted which depends upon the type of merging companies. The M&A process results in the restructuring of a business's purpose, corporate governance and brand identity. An arm's length merger is a merger: ″The two elements are complementary and not substitutes. The first element

402-433: A larger and/or longer-established company and retain the name of the latter for the post-acquisition combined entity. This is known as a reverse takeover . Another type of acquisition is the reverse merger , a form of transaction that enables a private company to be publicly listed in a relatively short time frame. A reverse merger is a type of merger where a privately held company, typically one with promising prospects and

469-566: A legal and financial point of view, both mergers and acquisitions generally result in the consolidation of assets and liabilities under one entity, and the distinction between the two is not always clear. Most countries require mergers and acquisitions to comply with antitrust or competition law . In the United States , for example, the Clayton Act outlaws any merger or acquisition that may "substantially lessen competition" or "tend to create

536-581: A media monitoring and analytics technology company. In January 2023, Cali Tran joined as CEO. In June 2023, Cision launched CisionOne, an AI-powered platform. In July 2024, Dow Jones & Co. filed a lawsuit against Cision for a breach of contract. Mergers and acquisitions Mergers and acquisitions ( M&A ) are business transactions in which the ownership of companies , business organizations , or their operating units are transferred to or consolidated with another company or business organization. This could happen through direct absorption,

603-426: A merger or acquisition transaction can range from political to tactical. Ego can drive choice just as well as rational factors such as brand value and costs involved with changing brands. Beyond the bigger issue of what to call the company after the transaction comes the ongoing detailed choices about what divisional, product and service brands to keep. The detailed decisions about the brand portfolio are covered under

670-436: A merger, a tender offer or a hostile takeover. As an aspect of strategic management , M&A can allow enterprises to grow or downsize , and change the nature of their business or competitive position. Technically, a merger is the legal consolidation of two business entities into one, whereas an acquisition occurs when one entity takes ownership of another entity's share capital , equity interests or assets . From

737-444: A need for financing, acquires a publicly listed shell company that has few assets and no significant business operations. The combined evidence suggests that the shareholders of acquired firms realize significant positive "abnormal returns," while shareholders of the acquiring company are most likely to experience a negative wealth effect. Most studies indicate that M&A transactions have a positive net effect, with investors in both

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804-711: A new round of funding led by Highland Capital. In September 2015, Brandwatch launched a French website., On 29 October 2015, Brandwatch raised $ 33 million in Series C funding, led by Partech Investors, to invest further growth in the US. In February 2021, Brandwatch was acquired by Cision . PeerIndex was a London -based company, founded by Azeem Azhar, providing social media analytics based on footprints from use of major social media services. Part of an emerging group of social media analytics providers, PeerIndex helped social media contributors to assess and score their influence and benefit from

871-572: A search engine for finding documents such as financial statements and patents. In 2007, this was relaunched as Brandwatch, which instead focused on tracking social media mentions and social advertising impact. The company received $ 6 million in venture capital from Nauta Capital in March 2012. In March 2014, Brandwatch partnered with Gnip , a social media API company, to release a new application that would allow users to access more social data and analytics. By May 2014, Brandwatch had gained $ 22 million from

938-434: A situation where one company splits into two, generating a second company which may or may not become separately listed on a stock exchange. As per knowledge-based views, firms can generate greater values through the retention of knowledge-based resources which they generate and integrate. Extracting technological benefits during and after acquisition is an ever-challenging issue because of organizational differences. Based on

1005-550: A special committee of independent directors; and 2) conditioned on an affirmative vote of a majority of the minority stockholders, the business judgment standard of review should presumptively apply, and any plaintiff ought to have to plead particularized facts that, if true, support an inference that, despite the facially fair process, the merger was tainted because of fiduciary wrongdoing.″ A Strategic merger usually refers to long-term strategic holding of target (Acquired) firm. This type of M&A process aims at creating synergies in

1072-468: A total value of US$ 2,164.4 bil. Some of the largest mergers of equals took place during the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s and in the year 2000: AOL and Time Warner (US$ 164 bil.), SmithKline Beecham and Glaxo Wellcome (US$ 75 bil.), Citicorp and Travelers Group (US$ 72 bil.). More recent examples this type of combinations are DuPont and Dow Chemical (US$ 62 bil.) and Praxair and Linde (US$ 35 bil.). An analysis of 1,600 companies across industries revealed

1139-456: Is friendly or hostile . Achieving acquisition success has proven to be very difficult, while various studies have shown that 50% of acquisitions were unsuccessful. "Serial acquirers" appear to be more successful with M&A than companies who make acquisitions only occasionally (see Douma & Schreuder, 2013, chapter 13). The new forms of buy out created since the crisis are based on serial type acquisitions known as an ECO Buyout which

1206-474: Is a co-community ownership buy out and the new generation buy outs of the MIBO (Management Involved or Management & Institution Buy Out) and MEIBO (Management & Employee Involved Buy Out). Whether a purchase is perceived as being "friendly" or "hostile" depends significantly on how the proposed acquisition is communicated to and perceived by the target company's board of directors, employees, and shareholders. It

1273-460: Is a mobile market research, polling, and survey tool. The tool has been notable in its use of predicting an accurate prediction for the Labour Party (UK) 's vote share in the 2017 United Kingdom general election . Qriously, along with Kantar and Opinium Research , were also praised for their 2019 United Kingdom general election prediction. Qriously were acquired by Brandwatch in March 2019. It

1340-426: Is a triangular merger, where the target company merges with a shell company wholly owned by the buyer, thus becoming a subsidiary of the buyer. In a "forward triangular merger ", the target company merges into the subsidiary, with the subsidiary as the surviving company of the merger; a "reverse triangular merger" is similar except that the subsidiary merges into the target company, with the target company surviving

1407-425: Is between two competitors in the same industry. A vertical merger occurs when two firms combine across the value chain, such as when a firm buys a former supplier (backward integration) or a former customer (forward integration). When there is no strategic relatedness between an acquiring firm and its target, this is called a conglomerate merger (Douma & Schreuder, 2013). The form of merger most often employed

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1474-399: Is combined into another entity by operation of the corporate law statute(s) of the jurisdiction of the merging entities. In a transaction structured as a merger or an equity purchase, the buyer acquires all of the assets and liabilities of the acquired entity. In a transaction structured as an asset purchase, the buyer and seller agree on which assets and liabilities the buyer will acquire from

1541-425: Is complete, the parties may proceed to draw up a definitive agreement, known as a "merger agreement", "share purchase agreement," or "asset purchase agreement" depending on the structure of the transaction. Such contracts are typically 80 to 100 pages long and focus on five key types of terms: Following the closing of a deal, adjustments may be made to some of the provisions outlined in the purchase agreement, such as

1608-426: Is important because the directors have the capability to act as effective and active bargaining agents, which disaggregated stockholders do not. But, because bargaining agents are not always effective or faithful, the second element is critical, because it gives the minority stockholders the opportunity to reject their agents' work. Therefore, when a merger with a controlling stockholder was: 1) negotiated and approved by

1675-586: Is made up of eight different products: Publish, Advertise, Measure, Benchmark, Influence, Engage, Audience, and Listen. Much of this is made up of products formerly sold under the Falcon.io suite. Falcon.io was acquired by Cision in January 2019 and merged with Brandwatch in May 2022. In 1999, Runtime Collective Ltd, a web-engineering company, was incorporated by CEO Giles Palmer. In 2005, the company launched Magpie Search and Alert,

1742-527: Is no longer available for clients. Brandwatch was acquired in Feb 2021 by Cision for 450M USD. Falcon.io was acquired by Cision in January 2019 and merged with Brandwatch in May 2022. Products formerly sold as part of the Falcon.io suite now sit within Brandwatch’s Social Media Management. Brandwatch is a subscription-based service with over 7,500 clients. Brandwatch has 17 offices across

1809-412: Is normal for M&A deal communications to take place in a so-called "confidentiality bubble," wherein the flow of information is restricted pursuant to confidentiality agreements. In the case of a friendly transaction, the companies cooperate in negotiations; in the case of a hostile deal, the board and/or management of the target is unwilling to be bought or the target's board has no prior knowledge of

1876-415: Is possible only when resources are exchanged and managed without affecting their independence. A corporate acquisition can be structured legally as either an "asset purchase" in which the seller sells business assets and liabilities to the buyer, an "equity purchase" in which the buyer purchases equity interests in a target company from one or more selling shareholders or a "merger" in which one legal entity

1943-460: Is provided by full-service investment banks- who often advise and handle the biggest deals in the world (called bulge bracket ) - and specialist M&A firms, who provide M&A only advisory, generally to mid-market, select industries and SBEs. Highly focused and specialized M&A advice investment banks are called boutique investment banks . The dominant rationale used to explain M&;A activity

2010-487: Is that acquiring firms seek improved financial performance or reduce risk. The following motives are considered to improve financial performance or reduce risk: Megadeals—deals of at least one $ 1 billion in size—tend to fall into four discrete categories: consolidation, capabilities extension, technology-driven market transformation, and going private. On average and across the most commonly studied variables, acquiring firms' financial performance does not positively change as

2077-521: The Hudson's Bay Company merged with the rival North West Company . The Great Merger Movement was a predominantly U.S. business phenomenon that happened from 1895 to 1905. During this time, small firms with little market share consolidated with similar firms to form large, powerful institutions that dominated their markets, such as the Standard Oil Company , which at its height controlled nearly 90% of

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2144-543: The "CisionMarketing Suite", the "Public Relations Suite" and the "Government Relations and Political Action Committee Suite". The Cision "Public Relations Suite" allows users to distribute press releases, access a database of bloggers and journalists (with no option to opt-out), and monitor and analyze news and social media sites. The company's "Government Relations Suite" manages government contacts, analyzes lobbying activity, facilitates communication with elected officials and provides PAC compliance software for filing reports to

2211-687: The FEC and state elections commissions. Through a series of acquisitions , the company provides services in PRWeb, HARO, North Social, Eureka, Vocus, and Media Insight Suite which Cision has continued to operate under the existing brand names. PRWeb is an online press release service. PRWeb services are available through the "Vocus Marketing Suite," the "Vocus PR Suite" or as a separate service. In 2011, Cision AB sold its Finnish subsidiary Oy Cision Finland AB to M-Brain Group . On September 15, 2014, Cision announced

2278-791: The Great Merger Movement were able to keep their dominance in their respective sectors through 1929, and in some cases today, due to growing technological advances of their products, patents , and brand recognition by their customers. There were also other companies that held the greatest market share in 1905 but at the same time did not have the competitive advantages of the companies like DuPont and General Electric . These companies such as International Paper and American Chicle saw their market share decrease significantly by 1929 as smaller competitors joined forces with each other and provided much more competition. The companies that merged were mass producers of homogeneous goods that could exploit

2345-483: The UK company Gorkana. Gorkana offered monitoring, journalist databases and analysis services. On December 15, 2015, Cision agreed to acquire PRNewswire from UBM plc for $ 841 million (approx. £575 million). On June 29, 2017, Cision went public via its reverse merger with special purpose acquisition company Capitol Acquisition Corporation III. On December 26, 2017, Cision agreed to acquire PRIME Research. The acquisition

2412-450: The acquiring company's stock, issued to the shareholders of the acquired company at a given ratio proportional to the valuation of the latter. They receive stock in the company that is purchasing the smaller subsidiary. There are some elements to think about when choosing the form of payment. When submitting an offer, the acquiring firm should consider other potential bidders and think strategically. The form of payment might be decisive for

2479-579: The acquisition of Visible Technologies, a social media analytics company. On October 14, 2014, Cision AB and Vocus announced a "friendly merger" of the two public relations companies. Cision based in Sweden will relocate its headquarters to Chicago and so will Vocus based in Maryland, United States. The company will be based in Chicago and the combined entity will be known as Cision. During 2015, Cision also acquired

2546-512: The acquisition so the team can focus on projects for their new employer). In recent years, these types of acquisitions have become common in the technology industry, where major web companies such as Facebook , Twitter , and Yahoo! have frequently used talent acquisitions to add expertise in particular areas to their workforces. Merger of equals is often a combination of companies of a similar size. Since 1990, there have been more than 625 M&A transactions announced as mergers of equals with

2613-514: The assets and liabilities that pertain solely to the unit being sold, determining whether the unit relies on services from other parts of the seller's organization, transferring employees, moving permits and licenses, and safeguarding against potential competition from the seller in the same business sector after the transaction is completed. From an economic point of view, business combinations can also be classified as horizontal, vertical and conglomerate mergers (or acquisitions). A horizontal merger

2680-563: The assets or ownership equity of the acquired entity. A consolidation/amalgamation occurs when two companies combine to form a new enterprise altogether, and neither of the previous companies remains independently owned. Acquisitions are divided into "private" and "public" acquisitions, depending on whether the acquiree or merging company (also termed a target ) is or is not publicly listed. Some public companies rely on acquisitions as an important value creation strategy. An additional dimension or categorization consists of whether an acquisition

2747-446: The business either through debt, equity, or a portion of both. Five common ways to "triangulate" the enterprise value of a business are: Professionals who value businesses generally do not use just one method, but a combination. Valuations implied using these methodologies can prove different to a company's current trading valuation. For public companies, the market based enterprise value and equity value can be calculated by referring to

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2814-482: The buyer and target companies seeing positive returns. This suggests that M&A creates economic value, likely by transferring assets to more efficient management teams who can better utilize them. (See Douma & Schreuder, 2013, chapter 13). There are also a variety of structures used in securing control over the assets of a company, which have different tax and regulatory implications: The terms " demerger ", " spin-off " and "spin-out" are sometimes used to indicate

2881-469: The buyer. Hence, the analysis should be done from the acquiring firm's point of view. Synergy-creating investments are started by the choice of the acquirer, and therefore they are not obligatory, making them essentially real options . To include this real options aspect into analysis of acquisition targets is one interesting issue that has been studied lately. See also contingent value rights . Mergers are generally differentiated from acquisitions partly by

2948-462: The company's current account), liquidity ratios might decrease. On the other hand, in a pure stock for stock transaction (financed from the issuance of new shares), the company might show lower profitability ratios (e.g. ROA). However, economic dilution must prevail towards accounting dilution when making the choice. The form of payment and financing options are tightly linked. If the buyer pays cash, there are three main financing options: M&A advice

3015-469: The company's share price and components on its balance sheet. The valuation methods described above represent ways to determine value of a company independently from how the market currently, or historically, has determined value based on the price of its outstanding securities. Most often value is expressed in a Letter of Opinion of Value (LOV) when the business is being valued informally. Formal valuation reports generally get more detailed and expensive as

3082-420: The content analysis of seven interviews, the authors concluded the following components for their grounded model of acquisition: An increase in acquisitions in the global business environment requires enterprises to evaluate the key stake holders of acquisitions very carefully before implementation. It is imperative for the acquirer to understand this relationship and apply it to its advantage. Employee retention

3149-430: The control of the buyer modified. If the issuance of shares is necessary, shareholders of the acquiring company might prevent such capital increase at the general meeting of shareholders. The risk is removed with a cash transaction. Then, the balance sheet of the buyer will be modified and the decision maker should take into account the effects on the reported financial results. For example, in a pure cash deal (financed from

3216-405: The efficiencies of large volume production. In addition, many of these mergers were capital-intensive. Due to high fixed costs, when demand fell, these newly merged companies had an incentive to maintain output and reduce prices. However more often than not mergers were "quick mergers". These "quick mergers" involved mergers of companies with unrelated technology and different management. As a result,

3283-468: The efficiency gains associated with mergers were not present. The new and bigger company would actually face higher costs than competitors because of these technological and managerial differences. Thus, the mergers were not done to see large efficiency gains, they were in fact done because that was the trend at the time. Companies which had specific fine products, like fine writing paper, earned their profits on high margin rather than volume and took no part in

3350-473: The global oil refinery industry. It is estimated that more than 1,800 of these firms disappeared into consolidations, many of which acquired substantial shares of the markets in which they operated. The vehicle used were so-called trusts . In 1900 the value of firms acquired in mergers was 20% of GDP . In 1990 the value was only 3% and from 1998 to 2000 it was around 10–11% of GDP. Companies such as DuPont , U.S. Steel , and General Electric that merged during

3417-440: The long run by increased market share, broad customer base, and corporate strength of business. A strategic acquirer may also be willing to pay a premium offer to target firm in the outlook of the synergy value created after M&A process. The term "acqui-hire" is used to refer to acquisitions where the acquiring company seeks to obtain the target company's talent, rather than their products (which are often discontinued as part of

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3484-440: The merger. Mergers, asset purchases and equity purchases are each taxed differently, and the most beneficial structure for tax purposes is highly situation-dependent. Under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code , a forward triangular merger is taxed as if the target company sold its assets to the shell company and then liquidated, them whereas a reverse triangular merger is taxed as if the target company's shareholders sold their stock in

3551-429: The most value from a business assessment, objectives should be clearly defined and the right resources should be chosen to conduct the assessment in the available timeframe. As synergy plays a large role in the valuation of acquisitions, it is paramount to get the value of synergies right; as briefly alluded to re DCF valuations. Synergies are different from the "sales price" valuation of the firm, as they will accrue to

3618-417: The offer. Hostile acquisitions can, and often do, ultimately become "friendly" as the acquirer secures endorsement of the transaction from the board of the acquiree company. This usually requires an improvement in the terms of the offer and/or through negotiation. "Acquisition" usually refers to a purchase of a smaller firm by a larger one. Sometimes, however, a smaller firm will acquire management control of

3685-446: The purchase price. These adjustments are subject to enforceability issues in certain situations. Alternatively, certain transactions use the 'locked box' approach, where the purchase price is fixed at signing and based on the seller's equity value at a pre-signing date and an interest charge. The assets of a business are pledged to two categories of stakeholders: equity owners and owners of the business' outstanding debt. The core value of

3752-446: The rewards for M&A activity were greater for consumer products companies than the average company. For the period 2000–2010, consumer products companies turned in an average annual TSR of 7.4%, while the average for all companies was 4.8%. Given that the cost of replacing an executive can run over 100% of his or her annual salary, any investment of time and energy in re-recruitment will likely pay for itself many times over if it helps

3819-448: The seller. Asset purchases are common in technology transactions in which the buyer is most interested in particular intellectual property but does not want to acquire liabilities or other contractual relationships. An asset purchase structure may also be used when the buyer wishes to buy a particular division or unit of a company that is not a separate legal entity. Divestitures present a variety of unique challenges, such as identifying

3886-442: The seller. With pure cash deals, there is no doubt on the real value of the bid (without considering an eventual earnout). The contingency of the share payment is indeed removed. Thus, a cash offer preempts competitors better than securities. Taxes are a second element to consider and should be evaluated with the counsel of competent tax and accounting advisers. Third, with a share deal the buyer's capital structure might be affected and

3953-414: The size of a company increases, but this is not always the case as the nature of the business and the industry it is operating in can influence the complexity of the valuation task. Objectively evaluating the historical and prospective performance of a business is a challenge faced by many. Generally, parties rely on independent third parties to conduct due diligence studies or business assessments. To yield

4020-700: The social capital they have built up. PeerIndex tracked approximately 45 million Twitter profiles, making the company one of the leaders in its sector. Brandwatch acquired PeerIndex in December 2014. With the use of PeerIndex technology, Brandwatch created their Audiences product, which they released in July 2016. BuzzSumo is a content marketing research and analysis tool, with its first Pro version released in September 2014. Brandwatch acquired BuzzSumo in October 2017. Crimson Hexagon

4087-490: The target company to the buyer. The documentation of an M&A transaction often begins with a letter of intent . The letter of intent generally does not bind the parties to commit to a transaction, but may bind the parties to confidentiality and exclusivity obligations so that the transaction can be considered through a due diligence process involving lawyers, accountants, tax advisors, and other professionals, as well as business people from both sides. After due diligence

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4154-632: The topic brand architecture . Most histories of M&A begin in the late 19th century United States. However, mergers coincide historically with the existence of companies. In 1708, for example, the East India Company merged with an erstwhile competitor to restore its monopoly over the Indian trade. In 1784, the Italian Monte dei Paschi and Monte Pio banks were united as the Monti Reuniti. In 1821,

4221-547: The transaction and going down into detail about what to do about overlapping and competing product brands. Decisions about what brand equity to write off are not inconsequential. And, given the ability for the right brand choices to drive preference and earn a price premium, the future success of a merger or acquisition depends on making wise brand choices. Brand decision-makers essentially can choose from four different approaches to dealing with naming issues, each with specific pros and cons: The factors influencing brand decisions in

4288-406: The way in which they are financed and partly by the relative size of the companies. Various methods of financing an M&A deal exist: Payment by cash. Such transactions are usually termed acquisitions rather than mergers because the shareholders of the target company are removed from the picture and the target comes under the (indirect) control of the bidder's shareholders. Payment in the form of

4355-615: The world, including in New York, London, Brighton, Copenhagen, Berlin, Sofia, Paris, Singapore, and Sydney. Cision Cision provides public relations services to businesses. The company offers social media monitoring and engagement and media publicity services. Cision's software is distributed in seven languages. As of June 2014 , it was used by more than 16,000 annual subscribers worldwide, including commercial businesses and governmental, educational and non-profit organizations. The company offers three web-based packages:

4422-475: Was a social intelligence company that was a competitor of Brandwatch. The two companies merged in October 2018, combining their technology and customer base into a $ 100m business. Following the Brandwatch-Crimson Hexagon merger, the two companies' technology was combined to create Brandwatch Consumer Research. This product would replace Brandwatch Analytics and Crimson Hexagon's Forsight. Qriously

4489-640: Was completed on January 24, 2018. On January 31, 2020, Platinum Equity completed its acquisition of Cision Ltd for $ 2.7 billion making it private again. In September 2020, Cision named Abel Clark as CEO, replacing interim chief Brandon Crawley. Prior to the appointment, Clark was CEO of TruSight. Cision announced the acquisition of Brandwatch in February 2021 for $ 450 million. Brandon Crawley returned as interim CEO in February 2022. In April 2022, Cision acquired Streem, an Australia-based realtime media monitoring company. In November 2022, Cision acquired Factmata,

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