Publicis to Acquire LiveRamp for $2.2 Billion
With this acquisition, for a total enterprise value of $2.2 billion, the Groupe furthers its investment in technology, data, and AI services to unlock new opportunities for the agentic era.
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Publicis Groupe has entered into an agreement to acquire LiveRamp, a global data collaboration platform.
With LiveRamp, Publicis will become a leader in data co-creation, an important capability in the age of artificial intelligence and an enabler of agentic business transformation.
With this acquisition, for a total enterprise value of $2.2 billion, the Groupe furthers its investment in technology, data, and AI services to unlock new opportunities for the agentic era.
In doing so, it will expand its addressable market, allowing it to raise its 2027-2028 objectives on net revenue and headline EPS growth at constant currency.
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LiveRamp: A Data Collaboration Platform
LiveRamp is a global data collaboration platform that enables companies to unify, manage, and activate data across the digital ecosystem.
Interoperable by design, it connects over 25,000 publisher domains and 500+ technology and data partners across 14 markets, and enables thousands of brands, retailers, media platforms, and data providers to collaborate and connect data effectively, efficiently and securely.
LiveRamp transforms fragmented and disconnected data into an enterprise-grade, unified, and actionable data asset built for insight, activation, and measurement.
Financial details of the transaction:
Under the terms of the agreement, Publicis Groupe will acquire LiveRamp for a total enterprise value of $2.167 billion in an all-cash transaction, based on an acquisition price of $38.50 per share.
The transaction represents a total equity value of $2.546 billion and includes acquired net cash of $379 million.
The purchase price represents a 29.8% premium to LiveRamp’s closing share price on May 15th, 2026, the last trading day prior to the announcement of the agreement.
The acquisition is expected to be accretive to Publicis Groupe’s headline EPS from the first year of consolidation, excluding transaction-related costs.
The transaction has been unanimously approved by the Board of Directors of both Publicis Groupe and LiveRamp.
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Accelerating data co-creation to build more intelligent agents:
Data co-creation is the process by which companies connect multiple high-value data sources across partners in a secure environment. This generates new data assets that the companies could not build alone.
This co-created data is a proprietary asset that drives a competitive edge for clients at a time when 93% of companies lack the right data for AI success.
Combined with Epsilon’s identity, LiveRamp’s collaborative clean rooms, data connectivity, marketplace and partner and agent network will build a leader in data co-creation that will enable clients to:
- Collaborate with Greater Speed, Security & Scale: Unifying fragmented internal and partner data to enable secure, seamless collaboration across organisations without exposing sensitive underlying data.
For example, a bank could build a powerful wealth management lifecycle agent in most markets and within a defined governance framework.
The agent could use tokenised customer data from its retail banking, credit card, and wealth management and securely unlock insights through partner data from merchants, payment networks, and travel providers – without exposing sensitive customer records.
This agent can now cross-sell faster, coordinate efforts across multiple lines of business. The business impact of the agent is transformed from narrow task completion into a tangible competitive advantage in customer lifetime value, customer experience and retention.
- Generate Proprietary Intelligence: Creating new data assets from unique combinations of signals and datasets, unlocking hidden insights that drive smarter strategies and a sustainable competitive AI advantage.
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For example, a retailer could build a comprehensive retail journey agent. The agent could connect data from CRM, loyalty, to in-store, to retail media network inventory, to partners in order to measure the incrementality of each touchpoint and to build new, proprietary journeys for shoppers.
The business result of this agent now becomes faster, more efficient shopper conversion and more value for retail media partners.
- Continuously Train & Fuel AI Models: Powering enterprise-grade AI agents with anonymised, integrated, dynamic, co-created data to accelerate responsiveness and decision-making within a defined governance framework.
For example, a global pharmaceutical company can build a therapeutic area optimisation agent. This agent can use clinical, commercial, and supply chain signals with de-identified patient, prescriber and payer data across their brands and at a therapeutic area level.
This agent can now use new dynamic signals to balance distribution by brand and optimise field-force deployment in the context of marketing. The business impact is incremental growth for each brand, more efficient and higher ROI field-force activities, therapeutic area product lifecycle management, and total enterprise growth.
Enabling end-to-end agentic business transformation:
Building smarter agents through data co-creation opens up a new addressable market and complements Publicis’ proven growth model, boosting its ability to accelerate clients’ agentic business transformation.
Thanks to Publicis Sapient, we can build and modernise technology and system foundations to make clients’ infrastructure AI-ready.
Epsilon’s market-leading identity connects clients and their agents to real people, behaviours, and deterministic transactions as the fundamental source of truth and growth potential.
The addition of LiveRamp enables data collaboration, safely and securely across partners, co-creating new data to fuel smarter agents for clients.
Finally, Marcel is the agentic platform that activates this co-created data across clients’ enterprise functions.
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Arthur Sadoun, Chairman and CEO of Publicis Groupe, said, “LiveRamp joining Publicis Groupe is the latest demonstration of our commitment to investing in new talent and innovation, ahead of market shifts.”
“After acquiring Epsilon in 2019 in the name of personalisation at scale and enabling our clients to take back control of their data from the walled gardens, by shifting from cookies to identity, once again we are looking ahead to what’s next.”
“By building the future of data co-creation, we’re empowering our clients to generate new, exclusive and proprietary data, to build the smartest, most differentiated AI agents on top of the leading LLMs. It will be valuable for our clients’ business growth, and a new addressable market for Publicis.”
“Thanks to the Power of One, we expect to be able to quickly unite and deploy LiveRamp’s capabilities globally for clients. Adding it to our ecosystem of Publicis Sapient, Epsilon, and Marcel, means we will go even further, and faster, in delivering agentic transformation to clients, whatever their stage of enterprise readiness, safely, transparently, and in their own environments.”
“Beyond its technology platform, LiveRamp is a team of outstanding talent, that we have had the opportunity to work closely with through our strategic partnership. We’re looking forward to welcoming them all to the Publicis family.”
Scott Howe, CEO of LiveRamp, commented, “We are thrilled to announce our agreement with Publicis, marking the beginning of an exciting new chapter for LiveRamp and all our stakeholders.”
“Our customers and partners have always been our North Star, and by joining forces with Publicis, we will have greater resources and flexibility to scale our business, continue innovating our platform, and help them unlock even greater value from their data.”
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“This transaction also represents the best path forward for our shareholders, delivering significant and certain cash value at a compelling premium. Above all, this outcome is a testament to our employees, whose hard work and dedication have made LiveRamp the trusted partner it is today, and who will have new opportunities to grow and thrive as part of a global industry leader.”
LiveRamp Post Acquisition
Following the acquisition, LiveRamp will continue to be led by CEO Scott Howe, who will report directly to Publicis Groupe CEO Arthur Sadoun. LiveRamp’s numbers will be reported within the Groupe’s Technology segment, like Publicis Sapient.
LiveRamp will continue to operate as a neutral, interoperable platform and provide open access across the ecosystem. No current or prospective customer will be prohibited from accessing, or restricted in using, its services.
Regarding privacy and control, LiveRamp will continue to protect client, partner and publisher data in accordance with existing contractual commitments, and will not use that data beyond what is expressly permitted under their agreements with them.
LiveRamp will continue to apply its standard commercial practices, with no changes to pricing outside the normal course of business and standard business practices.
As part of Publicis, LiveRamp will benefit from additional investment, scale, and expanded innovation capabilities, while maintaining the openness, interoperability, and trusted neutrality that clients, publishers and partners expect.
Next Steps
The transaction has been signed and is expected to close before year-end 2026, subject to regulatory approvals, approval by LiveRamp’s shareholders and other closing conditions.
Additional financial considerations and outlook
Publicis Groupe expects to fund the purchase price with cash on hand and debt, and maintain a financial profile in line with current BBB+ / Baa1 ratings, with full deleveraging expected two years after completion of the transaction.
Following completion, Publicis Groupe’s maximum net financial leverage is expected to remain limited to 1.2x in 2027.
Publicis Groupe confirms its 2026 guidance of a 4% to 5% net revenue organic growth, slight improvement in operating margin rate vs 18.2% in 2025 and record free cashflow before change in WCR of circa €2.1 billion.
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Advisors
Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz is serving as legal advisor to Publicis Groupe, and BofA Securities, Inc. is serving as financial advisor. Sullivan & Cromwell LLP is serving as legal advisor to LiveRamp, and Evercore is serving as financial advisor.
