WARC Sold to Media Firm Ascential

Ad industry research, publishing and subscription service WARC has been sold to B2B media company Ascential plc, for an initial cash consideration of £19.5m, plus a deferred consideration of £4.5m payable in 2019. The acquisition is expected to complete on 2nd July 2018.

Founded in 1985, WARC offers advertising best practice, evidence and insights through its online news content; journals including Admap and the journal of Advertising Research; and awards. It also features case studies and best practice content from more than 50 industry sources including the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF), Cannes Lions, Effie Worldwide, Association of National Advertisers, ESOMAR, 4A's, IPA and DMA.

WARC employs approximately 90 people from its offices in London, Washington DC and Singapore and serves approximately 1,200 customers globally. In the year to 31st March 2018, it generated unaudited revenue of £10.8m (representing growth of 10%) and EBITDA of £2.2m. Ascential says it intends to combine WARC with its newly launched comms industry online resource The Work, to create a new digital subscription service. This will enable clients of Ascential's marketing, media and ad industry awards the Cannes Lions to unlock analysis and benchmarking for their marketing campaigns.

Duncan Painter (pictured), CEO of Ascential, commented: 'WARC is an important step forward as we continue to grow our digital offering, adding breadth and depth to our marketing proposition. Alongside Cannes Lions' The Work, our recent digital product launch, we will now have a digital subscription product of scale encompassing both creative excellence and marketing effectiveness'.

Web sites: www.warc.com and www.ascential.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.