Expands Omnicom's reach in fast-growing
e-commerce & retail media segments
NEW YORK, Oct. 30, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Omnicom (NYSE: OMC)
today announced it has agreed to acquire Flywheel Digital, the
digital commerce business of Ascential (LSE: ASCL.L), for a net
cash purchase price of approximately $835
million. Flywheel's services enable top brands to sell more
goods more efficiently across hundreds of digital marketplaces,
such as Amazon, Walmart, and Alibaba.
Since 2014, Flywheel has been at the forefront of digital
commerce, developing a suite of best-in-class solutions
specifically designed to accelerate sales for the world's leading
brands. With a workforce of more than 2,000 professionals, Flywheel
provides services in retail commerce operations, media execution,
and market intelligence to over 4500 brands. These services are
reinforced by their advanced technology platform, Flywheel Commerce
Cloud, which delivers near real-time insights to improve
decision-making and boost sales.
John Wren, Chairman and CEO of
Omnicom said, "E-commerce sales worldwide are set to increase by
50%, reaching about $7 trillion
dollars by 2025. The acquisition of Flywheel significantly
broadens our reach and influence in the rapidly expanding digital
commerce and retail media sectors, two of the fastest-growing parts
of the industry. Together, we will seamlessly integrate our
offerings across retail and brand media, digital and in-store
commerce, and CRM, ultimately delivering superior results for our
clients."
For the past eight years, Flywheel has assembled leading-edge
digital commerce solutions and integrated them into a proprietary
platform with a single user interface. Today, the Flywheel Commerce
Cloud platform manages tens of billions in product sales and
billions of advertising spend annually across digital marketplaces.
Flywheel Commerce Cloud's product and transaction data will be
connected to Omni's audience and behavioral data to provide
unmatched insights and analytics.
Flywheel will operate as a Practice Area within Omnicom and will
be led by Duncan Painter who
currently serves as CEO of Ascential.
Painter stated, "By connecting Flywheel Commerce Cloud's product
and transaction data with Omni's audience and behavioral data, we
are poised to offer an end-to-end set of services that outpaces the
competition. We aim to empower our clients to automate, optimize,
and measure their digital commerce and media spend within an
increasingly complex marketplace."
The acquisition is expected to close in the first quarter of
2024 and is subject to Ascential shareholder approval, regulatory
approvals, and customary closing conditions.
Moelis & Company LLC acted as financial advisor and Latham
& Watkins LLP acted as legal advisor to Omnicom.
Omnicom has provided further detail on the acquisition in a
presentation available and archived on its investor relations
website.
About Omnicom
Omnicom (www.omnicomgroup.com) is a
leading global marketing and corporate communications
company. Omnicom's branded networks and numerous specialty
firms offer services in advertising, strategic media planning and
buying, precision marketing, commerce and branding, experiential,
customer relationship marketing (CRM), public relations, healthcare
marketing, and other specialty communications services to over
5,000 clients in more than 70 countries.
About Flywheel
Flywheel operates a leading cloud-based
digital commerce platform across the world's major digital
marketplaces. It enables our clients to access near real-time
performance measurement and improve sales, share, and profit.
Through its expertise, scale, global reach, and highly
sophisticated AI and data-powered solutions, Flywheel provides
differentiated value for both the world's largest consumer product
companies and fast-growing brands. These solutions can be tailored
from pure self-service software to outsourced management of digital
commerce marketplace operations and everything in between. With
operations across the Americas, Europe, APAC, and China, Flywheel offers clients access to
massive, global markets and has solutions for more than 400 digital
marketplaces. To discover more about Flywheel's revolution in
retail media technology visit the
new www.flywheeldigital.com or view the Flywheel brand
launch video.
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