LiveRamp stock surged 27% to $37.73 on Monday after French advertising giant Publicis announced it agreed to buy the San Francisco-based data platform for $38.50 a share in cash.
The deal values LiveRamp at a total enterprise value of $2.17 billion. With LiveRamp’s $379 million in net cash included, the total transaction comes to $2.55 billion.
The $38.50 per share price represents a 30% premium to LiveRamp’s closing price on Friday, May 15, the last trading day before the announcement.
BREAKING | @PublicisGroupe has agreed to acquire @LiveRamp for $2.2 billion in a deal funded by a mix of cash and debt.
Read more about the acquisition
https://t.co/hxOJHCKRYa pic.twitter.com/MbRrL0nFYA
— ADWEEK (@Adweek) May 17, 2026
Publicis American depositary receipts also climbed, rising 6% to $23.58 in U.S. trading on Monday.
The deal is Publicis’ biggest acquisition since it bought data company Epsilon for $4.4 billion back in 2019.
It marks a shift in strategy too. Publicis has largely focused on smaller bolt-on deals since then.
LiveRamp lets businesses match and connect datasets without directly exchanging personal information — a process known as “data co-creation.”
Publicis CEO Arthur Sadoun says that capability is exactly what companies need to build effective AI agents.
“There is no way you can win with agents if you don’t have the right and differentiated data,” Sadoun said in an interview.
He added that most corporate AI investments are falling short because the agents being built lack the data quality needed to perform.
“For agents to be competitive and to work, they have to run on good data, data that is unique, actionable, connected,” Sadoun said.
Publicis cited internal research showing 93% of companies don’t have the right data for AI success — framing LiveRamp as the fix.
Both companies’ boards have unanimously approved the transaction. It is expected to close by the end of 2026, subject to regulatory approval.
Publicis said it expects the deal to boost adjusted earnings from the first year it is consolidated into results.
The company also raised its 2027–2028 financial targets, now projecting net revenue growth of 7% to 8% and headline earnings per share growth of 8% to 10%, both excluding currency changes. That’s up one percentage point each from previous guidance.
Sadoun described the acquisition not as a defensive move in advertising, but as a push into an entirely new market.
“We did not need LiveRamp to win in the marketing space,” he said. “Where LiveRamp plus Publicis is going to make a difference is in the agentic space.”
LiveRamp’s stock closed Friday at roughly $29.60 before news of the deal broke Sunday. By Monday morning it had cleared $37.
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