(Bloomberg) -- French advertising holding company Publicis Groupe SA has acquired Mars United Commerce, a global marketing firm that works with online and brick-and-mortar stores.
Publicis announced the deal Thursday in a statement without disclosing the terms or valuation. The Wall Street Journal reported that the deal values Michigan-based Mars at $600 million, citing an unnamed source.
Publicis declined to comment on the valuation. Mars did not respond to a request for comment.
The Mars deal ties into Publicis’ broader strategy to weather a downturn in the broader advertising industry, which has seen clients divert spending to upgrade technology or guard against an uncertain economy. Publicis has said it’s searching for deals that will strengthen its competitive advantage specifically in the areas of data analysis and artificial intelligence.
Publicis described Mars in the statement as the world’s largest independent commerce marketing company, with 1,000 employees spread across 14 hubs. The French firm said it will integrate Mars’ shopping behavior data with its Epsilon platform, the personalized marketing business that Publicis purchased in 2019 for $4.4 billion.
Shares of Publicis closed Thursday in Paris at €99.92, up 2.7%.
The acquisition comes months after Publicis announced in July that it has agreed to buy marketing company Influential. Terms of that deal were not disclosed.
(Updates with closing share price in the sixth paragraph.)
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