Acquisition of Perpetua Labs Inc

RNS Number : 5181V

Ascential PLC

15 April 2021

 

THE INFORMATION CONTAINED WITHIN THIS ANNOUNCEMENT IS DEEMED TO CONSTITUTE INSIDE INFORMATION FOR THE PURPOSES OF THE MARKET ABUSE REGULATIONS.

15 April 2021

Ascential plc

Acquisition of Perpetua

Ascential plc (LSE: ASCL.L), the specialist information, analytics and e Commerce optimisation company, today announces the acquisition of Perpetua Labs Inc, an eCommerce media optimisation business that primarily targets Third party (3P¹) sellers.

Perpetua provides a self-service Saa S platform that helps independent sellers, as well as agencies and some larger brands, optimise the purchase of search and display advertising on Amazon and other major marketplaces. This marks new territory for Ascential's Digital Commerce segment, which the business will join, and which to date has exclusively served first party (1P) vendors. Perpetua has 66 staff, based primarily in Toronto, which include the founder and CEO Rosco Hill who is the largest shareholder.

The acquisition is for an initial cash consideration of US$52m, plus deferred consideration payable over four years, resulting in an estimated total consideration (including the initial consideration) of between US$103m and US$162m. Total consideration payable for Perpetua, in the event that very stretching targets are reached, is capped at US$250m.

In the year ended December 2020 Perpetua recorded revenue of US$3.8m (growth of over 3x vs 2019) and an EBITDA loss of US$0.2m. At December 2020 it had annualised MRR² of US$7.4m, with gross assets of US$10.9m.

Duncan Painter, CEO of Ascential, commented:

"Perpetua's expertise serving third party vendors, through data-driven solutions, opens the door for Ascential to this large and fast-growing market segment. Combined with the global reach of our existing Digital Commerce businesses, that provide a full service offering to larger, First party, brands, we have the exciting opportunity, with Perpetua, to expand our offerings across further platforms and geographies."

¹ 3P: Third (vs First) party, selling directly to consumers, via digital platforms

² Monthly Recurring Revenue

Contacts

Ascential plc
Duncan Painter	Chief Executive Officer	[phone]
Mandy Gradden	Chief Financial Officer
Rory Elliott	Investor Relations Director
Media enquiries
Edward Bridges, Matt Dixon, Jamie Ricketts	FTI Consulting LLP	[phone]

About Ascential

Ascential delivers specialist information, analytics and eCommerce optimisation platforms to the world's leading consumer brands and their ecosystems.

Our world-class businesses improve performance and solve problems for our customers by delivering immediately actionable information combined with visionary longer-term thinking across Digital Commerce, Product Design and Marketing.  We also serve customers across Retail & Financial Services.

· Digital Commerce - measurement, optimisation and execution for digital commerce growth.

· Product Design - consumer product trend forecasting, data and insight to create world-class products and experiences.

· Marketing - services and tools to measure and optimise marketing creativity, media and platform effectiveness and efficiency.

 

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