Bryan, Garnier & Co advises the shareholders of Agence79 on its sale to Havas Group
PARIS, March 23rd, 2017 – Bryan, Garnier & Co advises the shareholders of the pluri-digital agency Agence79 on its sale to Havas Group. Agence79 assists clients in the execution of communication strategies, media buying and the tracking and optimization of online campaigns.
In a sector that is systematically in the process of acquiring talent, major communication groups are consolidating their positions in the market by acquiring agencies of human size, particularly dynamic and recognized for their skills. The acquisition of Agence79 is a perfect example of this targeted acquisition strategy.
Founded in 2008 by Jérémie Bugard and Stéphane Gorre, Agence79 was named Best Media Agency of the Year in the Pure Player category for 2014 and 2016. The agency consists of a team of some 40 digital media experts working in task-force mode on all the web, mobile and social media marketing drivers: display campaigns, paid and organic listing, affiliation, e-mailing, community, programmatic, RTB (Ad exchange), Native and eRp. Agence79 is based in Boulogne Billancourt and Lyon and will be part of the Group’s media activities in France, which are run by Raphaël de Andréis.
It is therefore natural that this unique independent digital agency, which has been awarded several times Best Media Agency of the Year, is on the radar of large groups. Approached directly to consider selling, the founders decided to entrust a mandate to Bryan, Garnier & Co to organize a competitive process that would enable them to find the best industrial project.
Yannick Bolloré, CEO Havas Group, said: “We are delighted to welcome all the talent at Agence79 into the Havas family. This acquisition will add to our expertise in pluri-digital media, enabling us to offer our clients innovative solutions for taking classic media and content over to digital. Agence79’s crosscutting vision of digital perfectly fits into our Together strategy and I am sure that Jérémie and Stéphane’s teams will integrate Raphaël’s teams seamlessly”.
For Jérémie Bugard and Stéphane Gorre, Co-Founders of Agence79: “We are thrilled to be joining forces with Havas. We were looking for a solution to offline and international issues, the two major challenges facing the agency for the future. Ever since we first founded Agence79, we have always sought to shape, develop and position our offering with one aim in mind: to create the new generation media agency, an agency rooted in digital and capable of spreading out across the entire media landscape. The time has come to deploy this now tried and tested model on a grand scale. With the support of Havas, experts in supporting and generating growth, we can now write the second chapter of our story, grounded in the same philosophy and the same exacting standards, to better satisfy our present and future clients”.
Raphaël de Andréis, President, Media, Havas Group adds: “The Group’s media resources offer an unrivaled playing field for Agence79’s talent, who in turn will help us accelerate the digital transformation of brands”.
Jérémie Bugard and Stéphane Gorre will stay on as Associate Directors of Agence79, while Raphaël de Andréis will personally oversee the agency’s integration into the Group.
For Jérémie Bugard, Co-Founder of Agence79: "We were delighted to collaborate with the Bryan, Garnier & Co team who accompanied us throughout this process and made the right decisions at the right time. Their knowledge of the different bidders proved to be essential to the success of this transaction".
Guillaume Nathan, Partner, Bryan, Garnier & Co, specifies: "We were delighted to accompany the shareholders of Agence79 throughout this process. The quality of the managers, the skills of the agency, the client portfolio and the dynamics of the agency have allowed us to create strong dynamic in this process, with rich offerings both at a human and industrial level of the project. Thanks to a large number of recent transactions in this sector Digital (Recomposition of the capital of MyMedia, Proteins ceded to Equinoa, MSTV sold to Webhelp, Netino ceded to Webhelp), we have an intimate knowledge of both actors to buy and their methods of acquisition".
Agence79 advisors
M&A: Bryan, Garnier & Co (Guillaume Nathan, Jonathan Bohbot)
Legal: KL Gates (Nicola di Giovanni, Sidney Lichtenstein)
About Havas Group
Havas is one of the world's largest global communications groups. Founded in 1835 in Paris, the Group now employs 20,000 people in over 100 countries. Havas Group is committed to being the world’s best company at creating meaningful connections between people and brands through creativity, media and innovation. Havas is also the most integrated Group in its sector: the Together Strategy is implemented through Havas Villages, where most creative and media teams share the same premises, increasing synergies for clients and better serving their needs.
About Agence79
Founded in July 2008 by Jérémie Bugard and Stéphane Gorre, the agency assists its clients in implementing communications strategies, media buying and online campaign analytics and optimization. At the cutting edge in consulting and technology, the agency constantly monitors new media, targetings and communications levers. Every member of Agency 79 contributes to the agency’s expertise and skills in all its sectors of activity: media, search, tracking, creation, programmatic, PR and more. Agency 79 has won the trust of key players in the worlds of banking, tourism, leisure, digital, web and mobile, with a client roster that includes PMU, Commerzbank, Fujifilm, SEGA, Bpifrance, Schneider Electric, Grants, Cointreau, Piscines Desjoyaux, Medicis Mutuelle, EFS (the French national blood service) and Club Med.
About Bryan, Garnier & Co
Bryan, Garnier & Co is a European, full service growth-focused independent investment banking partnership founded in 1996. The firm provides equity research, sales and trading, private and public capital raising as well as M&A services to growth companies and their investors. It focuses on key growth sectors of the economy including Technology, Media, Telecoms, Healthcare, Smart Industries, Specialty Retail and Business Services. Bryan, Garnier & Co is a fully registered broker dealer authorized and regulated by the FCA in Europe and the FINRA in the U.S. Bryan, Garnier & Co is headquartered in London, with additional offices in Paris, Munich, Geneva, New York and New Delhi. The firm is a member of the London Stock Exchange and Euronext.