Ebiquity is an independent marketing and media consultancy. History Sarah-Jane and Steve Thomson founded Thomson Intermedia in 1997, building a comprehensive database of advertising creative executions and advertising spend in the UK. The media monitoring and analytics business was floated on AIM (the Alternative Investment Market) in 2000. In 2005, Thomson Intermedia acquired Billets – a media and marketing performance consultancy and auditing business, founded more than a decade earlier by John Billet – for £13m. The acquisition enabled Thomsons to enhance its advertising intelligence database with the actual cost paid for media, not just rate card values. In 2007, the Thomsons appointed Mike Greenlees (founder of creative agency Gold Greenlees Trott) and Nick Manning (founder of media agency Manning Gottlieb) as joint chief executives, stepping back from day-to-day management. The appointment led the company to grow rapidly by acquisition, expanding into both new services and new territories over the next eight years. The holding company rebranded from Thomson Intermedia to Ebiquity in 2008. Xtreme Information Services, a global advertising and media intelligence business, was acquired in 2010, and in February 2011, all 18 Billets and Xtreme trading offices around the world became Ebiquity. In May 2011, Ebiquity acquired Echo Research, a news and social media analytics and reputation research business, followed by global media consultancy Fairbrother Lenz Eley in March 2012. Subsequent acquisitions included: FirmDecisions the world’s leading media contract compliance business (2012) Stratigent, a multi-channel analytics business in the U.S. (2013) China Media Consulting Group (2014) Oh his retirement in January 2016, Greenlees was replaced as Group CEO by Michael Karg, who joined after 15 years at Publicis Groupe agencies Razorfish and Digitas. Karg’s appointment marked a change in direction for Ebiquity, with the company positioning itself as “the left-brain advisor to the CMO”, independent of the media supply chain, and offering more strategic consultancy services. In addition to media efficiency through its Media practice, Ebiquity focused more heavily on marketing effectiveness. This change of strategic direction manifested itself in both the parts of the business Ebiquity sold on as well as a smaller number of targeted acquisitions. In February 2018, Ebiquity announced it planned to sell its advertising intelligence business, a merger of the founding Thomson Intermedia business and the acquired Xtreme Information Services. The disposal was subject to a full, two-phase investigation by the U.K. Competition & Markets Authority – Phase 1 to a Statutory Timetable,