Technology

Aligning two global leaders in digital media

Macquarie Capital acted as the exclusive financial adviser to Brandwatch on its proposed acquisition by Cision.

Sector	Technology
Sub-sector	Services
Location	United Kingdom

Opportunity

The continued digital shift and widespread adoption of social media are rapidly and fundamentally changing how brands and organisations engage with their customers, rewarding those that listen to and quickly capitalise on insights from their consumers to create tailored, authentic communications at scale.

Brandwatch is a global leader in digital consumer intelligence and social media listening and a long-term client of Macquarie Capital. It works with thousands of brands, using the latest in artificial intelligence to derive meaning from the voices of the billions of people using social media.

Cision is a market leader in news distribution, monitoring and analysis, and social media management, with a network of over 1.1 billion influencers and over 75,000 customers.

The opportunity for Cision to acquire Brandwatch would allow its public relations (PR), marketing, social, and customer care teams to fully incorporate the real-time insights available into consumer-led strategies.

Approach

Macquarie Capital acted as the exclusive financial adviser to Brandwatch on its proposed acquisition by Cision for $US450 million.

This strategic move combines two leaders in their respective industries and brings customers the substantial benefits of their complementary capabilities to deliver the future of PR, marketing and digital customer engagement.

“We have always built Brandwatch with ambition. That was recognised by Forrester who recently named us as a leader in our space. Now is the time to take the next step – joining a company of significant scale to create a business and a suite of products that can have an important global impact. We are excited to join Abel and the Cision team to supercharge our work and bring even more value to our customers.”

Giles Palmer - Brandwatch Founder and CEO

Outcome