IPO
Upland Software began trading on Nasdaq Thursday at $12 a share after raising $46 million in its IPO. But stock in the Austin, Texas.-based company ended up falling 19% to $9.75 by Thursday’s close. Upland, which provides work and portfolio management applications, was founded in 2011 and has raised over $30 million in venture financing from Activant Capital and Austin Ventures.
Alibaba, which went public in September, hopped 4% to $106.07 after announcing its earnings Tuesday. The ballyhooed Chinese e-commerce company is up nearly 19% on its opening stock price of $93.89 after closing Thursday at $111.57.
M&A
Publicis, the global marketing communications firm that owns ad agencies like Saatchi & Saatchi and Leo Burnett, announced Monday that it would acquire the digital branding group Sapient Corp. for $3.7 billion in cash. In doing so, Publicis will pay a clear premium, as the price tag is 44% higher than Sapient’s closing stock price and represents an EBITDA multiple of over 19. The deal comes at a time when the old line ad agencies are increasingly having to compete less among themselves and more with the advertising outfits at Google and Facebook. Sapiens, which boasts Coca-Cola and the Fenway Sports Group (Boston Red Sox, Liverpool FC) as clients, will be known post-merger as Publicis.Sapiens, where it will become the umbrella group for Publicis’ other digital ad platforms, Razorfish and DigitasLBi. The acquisition will be finalized in the first quarter of 2015.
Online real estate search and brokerage Redfin announced last Friday that it had purchased its fellow Seattle-based real estate technology company Walk Score. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. “Walk Score is about what’s outside the four walls of a home or apartment and helping people make informed decisions about where they choose to live,” Walk Score CEO Josh Herst told CNBC. “We’re thrilled to be joining this insight with Redfin’s world-class home shopping experience and local market presence.”
Raytheon, the global weapons and commercial electronics manufacturer that contracts with the Pentagon, has acquired Blackbird Technologies for $420 million. Blackbird provides data-driven intelligence for those in the law enforcement and defense communities. “Blackbird expands Raytheon’s already-established footprint in the Intelligence Community market while helping to grow our cyber operations and special support to the Department of Defense,” said Raytheon president Lynn Dugle in a statement picked up by The Wall Street Journal.