The group, the majority of whose business is PR including Bite, Lexis and The Blueshirt Group, released a statement yesterday (8 December) saying the firm's board "notes the recent strength in the company's share price".
It went on to say the board "confirms that it is at an advanced stage of negotiations with regard to the acquisition of a small digital agency based in the UK for an initial cash consideration of £3.8m [$5.7m]".
The statement continued: "It is intended that the acquisition would be funded by a placing of new ordinary shares representing up to five per cent of the company's issued share capital with the remainder of the net proceeds being allocated by Next 15 to fund other acquisition and investment opportunities in the near term.
"A further announcement will be made in due course," the statement ended, and the firm told PRWeek it was not able to comment further at this time.