Billionaire Robert F. Smith's Vista Equity bids to take French ad tech firm Criteo private

Vista Equity Partners, the private equity firm built by billionaire Robert F. Smith, has made a bid to take Criteo private, targeting the French advertising-technology company at a premium of more than 50% to its recent share price.

Vista submitted the offer jointly with investment firm Quinti Capital, according to people familiar with the matter. News of the approach sent Criteo's Nasdaq-listed shares up 21.4% to $23.17 on July 6, their best day since November 2021, lifting the company's market value to about $1.16 billion.

The bid is unsolicited and early. Criteo's board has not decided how to respond, and none of the parties has commented publicly. The firms have not said whether the offer is all cash or how it would be financed, and there is no guarantee the approach leads to a deal.

Criteo has spent years remaking itself. Once known for the retargeting ads that trail shoppers around the internet, the Paris-based company rebuilt around retail media, the fast-growing business of selling ads across retailers' own websites and apps. It runs a platform tied to proprietary commerce data covering more than $1 trillion in annual sales, serves thousands of brands and retailers, and became OpenAI's first advertising-technology partner. About 2,000 brands now buy ads on ChatGPT through its systems.

The reinvention has not silenced the doubts. Criteo posted a 6% revenue decline in the first quarter and warned that two large retail-media clients would cut their use of the platform, though management expects growth to return by year end. The stock had slid over the prior year before the bid, leaving the company trading cheaply against its earnings and exposed to a buyer willing to pay up. Annual revenue runs around $1.9 billion.

A takeover has been rumored for years. Criteo hired Evercore to weigh its options under former chief executive Megan Clarken, held talks with retail-media firm Skai in late 2024 that collapsed, and relaunched a formal sale process in December 2025. Names floated as possible buyers over that stretch have included Microsoft, Walmart and The Trade Desk. Michael Komasinski took over as chief executive in early 2025 and has pushed to unify the company's tools into a single self-service platform aimed at winning smaller advertisers.

The company has also been reworking its legal structure in ways that make a takeover simpler. In October, Criteo said it would move its domicile from France to Luxembourg, a step toward an eventual shift to the United States, because French law offers no route to merge directly into a US company. Shareholders approved the move overwhelmingly in February, and the conversion is due to complete in the third quarter, the same window in which Vista and Quinti made their approach. Any buyer is purchasing a company in the middle of that transition.

Vista knows the sector. The firm paid a reported $1.4 billion for ad-tech company TripleLift in 2021, has held stakes in others, and specializes in buying software and technology businesses and running them away from the quarterly demands of public markets. Smith founded Vista in 2000 and built it into one of the largest technology-focused private equity firms in the world, managing tens of billions of dollars. He ranks among the wealthiest Black Americans and stands as one of the most prominent dealmakers in enterprise software.

Quinti Capital's role adds financial muscle to the consortium, though the firm has said little about its intentions. The bidders see Criteo's artificial-intelligence tools as a way to expand how retailers and advertisers use the platform, betting that ad budgets keep shifting toward data-driven, automated systems. The approach lands amid renewed private equity interest in ad tech, a sector public investors have often treated as hostage to cyclical advertising swings rather than durable software.

Criteo now faces a familiar decision made sharper by the size of the premium. It can engage with Vista and Quinti, use the offer to flush out rival bidders, or reject the approach and stay independent, a path it has taken before after earlier sale talks went nowhere. The board is expected to review the proposal in the coming weeks.

The premium on the table raises the pressure to at least start talking. Whether it produces a deal rests with a board that has walked away from suitors more than once.