• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, August 28, 2024

The shareholders of Ascential plc on September 4 will vote on whether to accept Informa plc's $1.5 billion acquisition offer, according to a transaction update released by the two companies late Tuesday.

Ascential, owner of the Cannes Lions and other ad industry-related businesses, recently agreed to acquire Effie Worldwide's assets, including the Effie Awards, and has been in the process of selling agency tech startup Hudson MX.

Assuming that Ascential shareholders vote to approve the deal, the merger is expected to close in the fourth quarter.

Ascential previously disclosed that its sale of Hudson MX has been taking longer than anticipated and it still is not clear whether it will occur prior to the closing of Ascential's acquisition by Informa or after.

If it occurs before the merger, the companies have agreed to pay the net proceeds from a Hudson sale as a dividend to Ascential shareholders, but they have not disclosed any terms if a Hudson MX sale is completed after the merger.

Ascential currently owns 89.7% of Hudson MX's equity, with the remaining 10.3% believed to be owned by a group of common shareholders including former Hudson MX CEO JT Batson (now CEO and Secretary General of the U.S. Soccer Federation), seed round investors Michael Kassan and his son Alexander Kassan, and possibly others who were part of a restructuring of Hudson MX's equity ownership in February 2023 that canceled the shares of all other common shareholders, including those of Hudson MX employees and contractors who exercised their options agreements.