Dentsu Group Inc.

Itochu announced on the 28th that it will conduct a tender offer for Dentsu Soken, a major system development company, at 2,880 yen per share through a subsidiary. Dentsu Soken plans to agree to the proposal, and Itochu will acquire 38.2% of shares, excluding those held by Dentsu Group, to take the company private. Regarding Dentsu Soken, the parent-subsidiary listing had been criticized by overseas institutional investors, and Dentsu Group had been considering taking it private to improve corporate governance. Dentsu Soken's market capitalization was 535.6 billion yen at the close on the 27th, and the total tender offer is expected to exceed 200 billion yen.

JA Tsumagoi Village, JAXA, and Dentsu began an experimental initiative on the 24th to use satellite data to forecast supply and prices of Tsumagoi Village's specialty cabbage, linking this to in-store promotions and advertising. When they determine it is a good time to sell due to increased supply, they will create demand through merchandising, and when supply is short, they will curb advertising, aiming to stabilize supply, demand, and prices while reducing food loss. Previously, producers walked the fields to check growth, but now satellite data on color, size, and other broad-area indicators will predict shipment volumes eight weeks ahead. Ajinomoto is also cooperating, and from the same day, Cook Do products are displayed next to Tsumagoi Village cabbage at Tokyu Store Sangenjaya. Going forward, they will propose cabbage-based menu ideas according to supply forecasts and roll out similar promotions at about 50 stores in sequence.

Dentsu Group reported on the 14th a consolidated net profit of 46.2 billion yen for the first half of the fiscal year ending December 2026, the January to June period, swinging into the black from a loss of 73.6 billion yen in the same period a year earlier. In addition to the effect of the weak yen, the company booked a gain of about 29.6 billion yen from the sale of the Dentsu Ginza Building in the first quarter, the January to March period. The company left its full-year consolidated net profit forecast for the fiscal year ending December 2026 unchanged at 69.7 billion yen. In the previous fiscal year, it posted a loss of 327.6 billion yen. The average estimate of 10 analysts compiled by IBES was 87.9 billion yen.

Dentsu and CreatorIQ have announced a first-of-its-kind data partnership that integrates dentsu's proprietary audience strategy platform, dentsu.Audiences, with CreatorIQ's AI-enabled platform, allowing brands to directly match target audience attributes with creator audience data for the first time. The integration, announced at Cannes, enables dentsu clients across creative, media, and CRM to access a creator database powered by CreatorIQ, evaluating creators at scale—from micro to macro—across all social media platforms against customized audience intelligence. The partnership addresses a persistent industry inefficiency where creator selection has been disconnected from media audience definitions, instead embedding creator profiles and audience data into dentsu.Audiences so brands can select creators based on who they need to reach. While focused on the US, the partnership extends globally and is already being tested by dentsu clients in travel, CPG, and health sectors. The collaboration will be integrated into the tech stack powering dentsu Social and follows the relaunch of 360i in the US as an AI-native, social-first solution.