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Aussie tech firm to buy online ad service Facebook for $1.5bn

By Mark J. MurphyPublished August 15, 2018 12:15:20Updated August 15.2018 12:30:50Aussie tech giant, Facebook, has been approved by Australia’s Competition and Consumer Commission to buy an Australian online ad network for $4.5 billion, the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) has confirmed.

The transaction, which will see Facebook buy an advertising network called Adsense for $2.6 billion, is the largest of its kind in Australia and the largest ever transaction of this type.

According to ASX data, the price tag includes:Advertising revenue, which is expected to be $7.7 billion;General revenue, of which Facebook has a 49% stake; and the remaining 49% will be held by the remaining shareholders.

It will be Facebook’s second purchase of an Australian company after the company acquired Australia’s largest online advertising network, Doubleclick.

The transaction was approved in April 2018, when it paid $3.5 million to buy the ad network, which has about 10 million users and a market capitalisation of $6.6bn.

In an interview with Bloomberg last year, Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said the acquisition was about bridging the gap between Facebook’s user base and the amount of advertising content available.

“If you can help people discover what you want to see, if you can make your product more engaging and more relevant to people, you can get more people to visit your site,” Zuckerberg said.

The $4 billion is a 25% increase from the $2 billion it paid for Doubleclick in 2018, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Zuckerberg told Bloomberg he hoped the purchase of the advertising network would be an example for other Australian companies to follow in the future.

“We think this is an example of a company that can be a leader in the digital advertising space,” he said at the time.

“If a company is able to do this in Australia, then you will see more companies like this across the world.”ABC News’ Andrew Fazio contributed to this report.