Altice has acquired the online video marketplace Teads for €285 million on a cash and debt-free basis.
The price is subject to Teads achieving certain revenue targets this year.
Seventy five per cent of the acquisition purchase price will be due at closing and the remaining 25% earn-out subject to Teads’ 2017 revenue performance becoming payable in early 2018. The acquisition is subject to certain competition reviews and expected to close in mid-2017.
The senior management of Teads, including executive chairman Pierre Chappaz and CEO Bertrand Quesada, will continue to lead the business going forward and have agreed to reinvest a significant portion of their proceeds. Pierre Chappaz will join Altice’s management board responsible for all of its advertising activities.
Teads was founded in 2011 and is the inventor of outstream video advertising. Its native video advertising solutions encompass a series of formats inserted deep into media content and it has created premium inventory that did not exist before. Brands and agencies can access this inventory, available on the web and on mobile, through programmatic or managed services.
Teads’ revenues grew by 44% in 2016 to an estimated €187.7 million.
Commenting on the deal, Michel Combes, CEO of Altice, said: “Convergence of telecoms, content, and advertising is at the core of our business. There is significant incremental value to be generated from our assets. Teads, a powerful business in itself, with major presence in Altice footprint notably in the U.S. and France, will enable us to offer a truly unique value proposition to brands and agencies on the one hand and the media industry, programmers and distributors on the other. It is that value proposition – data-driven, measurable and multiscreen – which will enable us to significantly grow our advertising business. We are very excited to partner with Pierre, Bertrand and their talented team.”
Pierre Chappaz, founder and executive chairman of Teads, added: “We are excited to start this new phase of Teads and become part of the internationally renowned Altice team. Since our inception we have strived to offer our clients with superior advertising solutions based on measurable performance and technological innovation. As part of Altice, we will be able to offer even more tailored, data-driven solutions and take our value proposition from the digital world to a multiscreen platform, which includes TV, digital, mobile and tablets. It is this differentiated offering which will allow Altice and Teads to uniquely prosper in the global advertising market.”
