Publicis to buy US data firm LiveRamp for $2.2bn

(Sharecast News) - Publicis shares surged on Monday after the French advertising and PR firm agreed to buy US data company LiveRamp for $2.2bn.

Publicis said in a statement on Sunday that with LiveRamp, it will become "a leader in data co-creation, an important capability in the age of artificial intelligence and an enabler of agentic business transformation".  

The acquisition furthers Publicis' investment in technology, data, and AI-services to unlock new opportunities for the agentic era, it said.

Publicis said the deal is expected to be accretive to its headline earnings per share from the first year of consolidation, excluding transaction-related costs. It is also expected to enhance the company's growth profile, with the group raising its 2027 and 2028 constant currency growth objectives to between 7% and 8% growth in net revenue and 8% and 10% growth in headline EPS. It had previously guided to growth of between 6% and 7% and 7% and 9%, respectively.

Chairman and chief executive Arthur Sadoun said: "LiveRamp joining Publicis Groupe is the latest demonstration of our commitment to investing in new talent and innovation, ahead of market shifts.

"After acquiring Epsilon in 2019 in the name of personalisation at scale and enabling​ our clients to take back control of their data from the walled gardens, by shifting from cookies to identity, once again we are looking ahead to what's next.

"By building the future of data co-creation, we're empowering our clients to generate new, exclusive and proprietary data, to build the smartest, most differentiated AI agents on top of the leading LLMs.

"It will be valuable for our clients' business growth, and a new addressable market for Publicis.

"Thanks to the Power of One, we expect to be able to quickly unite and deploy LiveRamp's capabilities globally for clients. Adding it to our ecosystem of Publicis Sapient, Epsilon, and Marcel, means we will go even further, and faster, in delivering agentic transformation to clients, whatever their stage of enterprise readiness, safely, transparently, and in their own environments."

At 0906 BST, Publicis shares were up 4% at €80.16.