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Agency M&A Activity Has Jumped 126% in 2018, With Consultancies Leading the Pack

R3 report finds biggest growth in the U.S. market

mergers-content-2018 — In January, February and March alone, there were 100 agency-related deals worth a collective $4.6 billion in sales.Getty Images

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The advertising industry M&A market was red-hot in the first quarter of 2018. It just didn’t come from the usual suspects.

A new report from consultancy R3 found that the global value of such deals soared 126 percent in the first three months of the year, led by “non-traditional buyers” like the consulting behemoths disrupting business on Madison Ave.

“The consultants and other non-traditional buyers are taking the lion’s share of the assets,” R3 principal Greg Paull wrote in the report.