Havas Is Officially a Public Company
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Havas is now officially an independent, publicly traded business following a successful spin-off from parent company Vivendi.
On Monday (Dec. 16), the agency network debuted on the Euronext Amsterdam exchange with a valuation of $2.6 billion (€2.5 billion).
Havas has been under Vivendi’s management since its acquisition in 2017, operating alongside sister companies including French media giant Canal+ and video platform Dailymotion.
Havas chairman and CEO Yannick Bolloré, whose family still owns around 30% of Havas, will retain his titles.
He said in a statement that the listing would give Havas the flexibility to accelerate its growth across “key business lines” and would strengthen its market position.
In November, Bolloré told the Financial Times that Havas would consider “significant” merger and acquisition deals once the listing was complete.
Since the start of the year, it has made over 10 acquisitions, including U.K. social media agency Wilderness and B2B shop Ledger Bennett.
The float comes amid a four-way break-up plan from Vivendi, which also saw it split and publicly list two other entities including Canal+, the parent company of movie producer StudioCanal, and publishing firm Louis Hachette Group. Respectively, the two companies were floated on the London Stock Exchange and the Euronext Growth Exchange in Paris.
Big changes for the ‘big six’ ad networks
Havas’ stock market debut lands exactly one week after Omnicom’s $13.25 acquisition of Interpublic Group, a deal that will upend the best-laid plans of the pair’s holding group rivals.
Omnicom will now be the dominant network in the U.S., competing with French powerhouses Publicis Groupe and Havas, U.K.-based WPP, and Japan’s Dentsu for ad budgets.
Omnicom and IPG say they want to build the industry’s “premier marketing and tech-enabled sales organization,” with a strategy rooted in AI, data, and innovation designed to face off competition from tech giants including Meta and Google.
The two groups count 133,000 staff globally at present, versus Havas’ 23,000.
Havas, too, has been investing in AI-powered solutions for clients, announcing plans in June to commit over $400 million to the tech over the next four years.
A chunk of this spend will be funneled into Havas Converged, a cookieless AI-powered solution that lets clients plan media across platforms.
In Q3 of 2024, Havas’ net revenue declined by 0.5% versus the previous quarter.
https://www.adweek.com/agencies/havas-is-officially-a-public-company/