Munich, 23 March 2020 – The Global Savings Group (GSG) and M6 Group have reached a deal on a take over of the leading French cashback player iGraal. The transaction involves a partial acquisition in cash for an amount of 35 million euros and an exchange of shares. With iGraal valued at 123.5 million euros (subject to adjustment), GSG acquires France’s biggest digital cashback player. The deal over iGraal is one of the largest transactions in the industry in recent years. In 2019, GSG and iGraal jointly saw more than six million members using its loyalty tools and connected advertisers to around 400 million consumers. The deal makes GSG the largest digital rewards, savings and shopping content platform in Europe.
After the 2018 takeover of the UK loyalty specialist Pouch, the addition of iGraal’s digital cashback solution now enables GSG to cover the full online shopping cycle of consumers with Commerce Content. With the new synergies created by the combination of cashback, voucher codes, rewards, and shopping content, GSG greatly expands its reach, addressing additional types of shoppers and broadening its access points to consumers through dedicated web, app, and extension experiences. GSG intends to also enable its strategic partnerships with some of the world’s most reputable publishers, including L’Express, Burda, El Pais or CNN to take advantage of the new offering and monetization opportunities for its audiences.
The Munich-based company expects to have more than half a billion shopping-related touchpoints and to facilitate over 40 million transactions to its merchant partners in 2020. The additional user interactions provide GSG with valuable new insights into the shopping behavior of millions of consumers worldwide and enable it to build an even smarter advertising platform for its partners.
With iGraal, the leader on the French digital cashback market joins the GSG family. iGraal brings deep expertise in member acquisition and digital marketing, strong and long-term partnerships with top e-merchants and state-of-the-art technology in the loyalty segment. Together, iGraal and GSG intend to further expand their cashback and loyalty solutions into new European markets and significantly increase their member base and reach. Despite strong investments and market expansion, GSG expects to stay profitable also in 2020.
Gerhard Trautmann, co-founder and CEO of the Global Savings Group: “The acquisition of iGraal is another significant step on our way to becoming a new European champion. Our various consumer models enable us to reach millions of shoppers worldwide and help them to make smarter purchasing decisions. Contrary to payment providers, we reach our users early in the shopping funnel, before the actual transaction takes place. Together with our publishing partners, our more holistic product offering can satisfy an even greater amount of consumers in their shopping journey.”
Matthias Lesterlin, CEO of iGraal: “We are very happy to become a part of the Global Savings Group. This new cooperation provides us with the perfect conditions to launch iGraal and grow our cashback community in new markets. Joining forces with GSG, I am confident we will become Europe’s biggest cashback provider and significantly increase our presence globally.”
