Stagwell Media Network buys Brand New Galaxy

L: Mark Penn, Chairman and CEO, Stagwell. R: Piotr Morkowski, CEO of Brand New Galaxy Holding
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Updated 22 April 2022
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Stagwell Media Network buys Brand New Galaxy

  • Acquisition allows marketing group to accelerate connected commerce and digital transformation for global brands

DUBAI: Stagwell, a US-based marketing and media network, has bought Brand New Galaxy, a provider of scaled commerce and marketplace solutions for over 150 global brands and 500 e-retailers worldwide.

With 600 employees across Europe, MENA and the US, BNG specializes in digital-first connected commerce solutions scaling. By joining the Stagwell network, it will broaden the group’s e-commerce capabilities to service more complex global clients.

BNG has worked with Stagwell since 2021 via the latter’s global affiliate program. The move marks Stagwell's first acquisition of one of its affiliates.

“We are pleased to welcome Brand New Galaxy to the Stagwell platform, expanding the reach of our global e-commerce offerings. Their state-of-the-art e-commerce and digital transformation technology is another reason clients are choosing Stagwell over traditional holding companies,” said Mark Penn, chairman and CEO of Stagwell.

As part of Stagwell Media Network, Brand New Galaxy will continue to retain its brand identity, and will operate independently under the BNG brand as well as collaborate with other members of the network.

Piotr Morkowski, CEO of Brand New Galaxy Holding, said: “BNG was born as an e-commerce-native business and over the last five years of incredible growth, we have built a set of unique, world-class capabilities to support our global clients across the entire path to purchase. Building a global business of 600 experts in less than five years is no small achievement, but we are hungry to do much more.”

Stagwell Media Network now comprises over 3,500 experts across more than 20 countries and 40 offices, managing close to $5 billion in media.


Amazon’s AWS reports outage after UAE datacenter struck by ‘objects’

Updated 58 min 26 sec ago
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Amazon’s AWS reports outage after UAE datacenter struck by ‘objects’

  • AWS confirmed sparks and fire after objects hit UAE data center causing disruptions to Emirate and Bahrain regions
  • Full recovery ‌expected to “be many hours away”

LONDON: Amazon’s cloud-computing facilities in the Middle East faced power and connectivity issues on Monday after unidentified “objects” struck its data center in the United Arab Emirates.
The objects had triggered a fire on Sunday that forced authorities to eventually cut power to two clusters of Amazon data centers in the UAE, with restoration expected to take several more hours, according to Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) status page.
Localized power issues impacted AWS services ‌in both ‌the UAE and neighboring Bahrain, according to the ​page. ‌Abu ⁠Dhabi Commercial Bank ​said ⁠its platforms and mobile app were unavailable due to a region-wide IT disruption, although it did not directly link the outage to the AWS incident.
While Amazon did not identify the objects, the incident happened on the same day Iran fired a barrage of drones and missiles at Gulf States in retaliation for US and Israeli strikes that killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
A ⁠strike, if confirmed, on the AWS facility in ‌the UAE will mark the first time a ‌major US tech company’s data center has been ​knocked offline by military action. ‌It could also raise questions around Big Tech’s pace of expansion in ‌the region.
US tech giants have been positioning the UAE as a regional hub for artificial intelligence computing needed to power services such as ChatGPT. Microsoft said in November it plans to bring its total investment in the UAE to $15 billion by ‌the end of 2029 and will use Nvidia chips for its data centers there.
“In previous conflicts, regional ⁠adversaries such as ⁠Iran and its proxies targeted pipelines, refineries, and oil fields in Gulf partner states. In the compute era, these actors could also target data centers, energy infrastructure supporting compute, and fiber chokepoints,” Washington-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies said last week.
Microsoft as well as Google and Oracle — both of which also operate facilities in the UAE — did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.
AWS said a full recovery from the issues was expected to “be many hours away” for both UAE and Bahrain.
The outage had disrupted a dozen core cloud services and the company ​advised customers to back up ​critical data and shift operations to servers in unaffected AWS regions.