Dentsu Inc. announced today that its global business headquarters Dentsu Aegis Network Ltd., will acquire an 89% stake in the SVG Media Group, comprising SVG Media Pvt Ltd, DGM India Internet Marketing Pvt Ltd and Networkplay Media Pvt Ltd.
Following the acquisition, the SVG Media Group will be incorporated into the Asia Pacific digital marketing agency Columbus and become SVG Columbus. Headquartered in Australia, Columbus is one of the Dentsu Group’s brands currently developing business in the digital field. The acquisition of SVG Group means the launch of Columbus in the Indian market.
Anurag Gupta, currently CEO of SVG Group, will stay and become CEO of SVG Columbus & DGM. He will report to Ashish Bhasin, Chairman and CEO of Dentsu Aegis Network South Asia.
Gupta himself, Chirag Shah, CEO of SVG Media Mobile & Seventynine, Deven Dharamdasani, COO ofSVG Media Mobile & Seventynine, Akshay Mathur, Business Head of Komli, and Ashwani Mehta, Finance Controller, will join the SVG Columbus Managing Board, which will be chaired by Vivek Bhargava, CEO of Performance, Dentsu Aegis Network India.
Harish Bahl and Manish Vij, founder and co-founder of the Smile Group, will continue to focus on investments through the Smile Group and will no longer act as directors of SVG Media.
It has also been agreed that the Smile Group will retain the Tyroo Techlabs business.
Under the agreement Dentsu Group has the option to increase its share incrementally to make the SVG Media Group a wholly owned subsidiary in the future.
About SVG Media Group
SVG Media Group is one of India’s largest independent digital performance media services corporate groups.
Dentsu Aegis Network is currently Google’s largest search partner in India and the addition of SVG Media will further strengthen the Group’s leading search position in the market.
Established in 2006, led by Anurag Gupta (Group CEO) and headquartered in Gurgaon with offices in other three Mjor cities in the country (Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore), the SVG Media Group comprises three service brands (DGM, Komli, Seventynine) providing online performance marketing, mobile, social data targeting and content media services and employing 280 people.
The services provided by the SVG Media Group have an established reputation and are used by a number of leading companies from India, as well as international clients in Dubai, Indonesia and China.
The Group posted INR 680 million for the fiscal year ending on March 31st, 2016.
Searching for a leading position in the Indian digital market
With this acquisition, Dentsu aims to enhance synergistic effects through alliances with locally deployed SVG Media Group companies, accelerate growth strategies in the Indian market and establish a leading position in the digital domain in India.
Ashish Bhasin, Chairman and CEO of Dentsu Aegis Network South Asia, said: “India is a significant market with rapid growth potential in its
mobile and performance marketing business, and Dentsu Aegis Network India has a strong track record in the search and performance space to deliver this. Given its capabilities in data led search, performance marketing and mobile, SVG Columbus is ideally positioned to capture the fragmented long tail publisher market in India using technology and data. As a Group we have leading position in digital in India, particularly in search and performance and this gives us a clear leadership position in this area. We will now have over 1,300 digital professionals, accounting for over 35% of our revenues, well ahead of our competitors.”
On behalf of SVG Columbus management, Anurag Gupta, CEO of SVG Columbus,said: “We started out as a digital media group more than a decade ago, and for us to join forces with a clear market leader in digital, that is Dentsu Aegis Network, makes perfect sense. Their priority in placing digital at the forefront of their strategy and goals align perfectly with ours. We will continue to scale our offering in performance marketing and serving clients through the network and other agency networks. We are assured of their strong growth momentum, which will enable us to further enhance our scale as a business operationally and geographically. Their unique one P&L model also allows us to be part of that shared vision towards a digital world which will provide us with access to the latest industry technology and talent to deliver the best solutions for our clients.”
Image over the headline.- © SVG Media Group
