Agency holding company WPP will buy a 20% stake in Globant S.A., an emerging leader in design and creative capabilities in the development of software products that can be applied to digital marketing campaigns on a global scale.
HQ’d in Buenos Aires, Globant is a rapidly growing business employing 2,700 engineers, marketing specialists and designers in 21 offices across 14 cities in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, the US and UK.
Globant specializes in state of the art digital marketing spaces including, but not limited to, mobile, gamification, social networks, cloud computing, big data and e-commerce. Globant’s clients include American Express, JP Morgan Chase & Co., LinkedIn, Electronic Arts, Google, Coca-Cola, National Geographic, Zynga and Sabre Holdings, as well as a number of WPP companies, such as JWT, Young & Rubicam, Grey, GroupM and Kantar.
The company’s approach is unique in that it provides clients with both the infrastructure and technical support that drive digital marketing campaigns, combined with the creative and design skills usually found alone in digital agencies.
Globant’s net revenues for 2011 were $90 million and net revenues for the six months to 30 June 2012 were $56.9 million with total assets of $69 million as of 6/30/12. WPP will invest $70 million in acquiring the stake.
“Increasingly, clients want better coordination between their IT departments and their marketing departments, between their Chief Information Officers and their Chief Marketing Officers,” said WPP Chief Executive Sir Martin Sorrell. “There are many consulting companies or digital agencies that are expert in one function or the other. Few, if any, do both and even fewer can integrate deep technical and creative capabilities on a global scale as Globant does. Partnering with Globant will allow our companies to increasingly provide our clients with insights and skills that will make their digital marketing efforts even more effective and simpler to manage at both the front and back ends.”
This investment continues WPP’s strategy of targeting fast-growing markets and sectors and the application of technology to the communications services industry. In 2012 WPP completed 25 transactions with companies that are in either faster growing markets or faster growing sectors such as digital, data or application of technology, or both.
