AT&T is close to a deal to acquire the advertising company AppNexus, the business news website Cheddar reported. Privately-held AppNexus operates an independent ad exchange for buying and selling of digital ads, which would help AT&T compete better with Google and Facebook and monetise its new content assets at Time Warner.
Sources familiar with matter told the Wall Street Journal that the acquisition is expected to cost around USD 1.6 billion. AT&T and AppNexus both declined to comment.
AT&T has already hinted it's considering new acquisitions. After completing the Time Warner takeover last week, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson told CNBC that the company was in the process of starting a "significant advertising platform" and would announce at least one other acquisition "in the coming weeks to demonstrate our commitment to that".
Leading AT&T’s efforts to build an advertising business is Brian Lesser, the former CEO of GroupM North America who joined AT&T in October 2017. Lesser previously sat on the board of AppNexus. AT&T is already one of AppNexus’s biggest customers, according to a person familiar with the business.AppNexus originally planned to hold an initial public offering in early 2017 but backed out of the process, according to another person close to the company. CEO Brian O’Kelly told Cheddar a few months ago that the business was "very, very financially healthy". The New York-based company has raised roughly USD 344 million in private funding since it was founded in 2007.
