We believe this will lead to a significant increase in digital transformation spending. Our expertise in delivering AI-enabled marketing and enterprise transformation positions us extremely well to capitalize on this long term talent. We’ve already done award winning work with generative AI and audience development at Code and Theory for Tipico, a European sports betting giant, and are also helping the publisher, Ringier, build the newsroom of the future with AI. Additionally, we’ve recently signed a large office retailer into our enterprise AI solution in the Stagwell Marketing Cloud called the PrivateGPT. The strikes in Hollywood, which affected our consumer insights and strategy capability, dragging it down 9% in the third quarter, are almost over and we expect this business to return to normal levels by Q4 and next year.
Digital transformation excluding advocacy was down 17% in the third quarter, but all signs point to a return to both sequential and year-over-year net revenue growth in the fourth quarter. We continue to examine our portfolio and the best ways to deploy capital. Yesterday, we announced the closing of a transaction to sell ConcentricLife, a prescription drug marketing agency, to Accenture. Stagwell has an amazing track record of acquiring businesses and driving meaningful improvement in revenue and profitability. This fact was reflected in the $245 million selling price, which represented a 4x to 5x return on our initial investment in the business. In the transactions we’ve completed or expect to complete this year, we will replace by year’s end all of the divested revenue and EBITDA for a cash outlay of less than a fifth of that sales price, giving us the ability to use the additional capital to accelerate growth over the next few years, while prudently managing our balance sheet and deploying targeted share repurchases against the $155 million remaining in our authorized buyback.
We’ve developed not only one of the world’s top tech infused marketing services companies, but we have also created a great platform for acquisition and growth of such firms. The double-digit EBITDA ratio of this asset, which no analyst in my recollection in over 50 such meetings even asked about, is representative of the value of many of our portfolio companies, totaling billions of dollars, which should command an even higher value when brought together at scale as we do at Stagwell. Our goal is to fine tune our portfolio by paring back on non-core assets and investing in AI and global expansion to get to scale in all of our services. There’s one other non-core asset which we’re actively exploring divesting at this time, which we expect will yield the transaction about half the size of ConcentricLife by the end of the year.
Additionally, on the M&A front, we recently announced the acquisition of Left Field Labs, which will form a critical part of our strategy to lead the AI transformation of marketing. Left Field has built a track record of designing experiences and products never imagined before and adds end-to-end services encompassing strategic innovation, user experience design, adept prototyping, and cutting edge technological engineering. We have also acquired Movers + Shakers, crowned by Adweek as the world’s best agency on TikTok. Movers joins to supercharge our ability to connect brands to culture and resonate with Gen Z and Millennial consumers. They boast particular strength in mainstream social and emerging digital platforms, which will be complementary to the Constellation network.
The Steigerwald Marketing Cloud remains a major investment focus for us. This is the second quarter we’ve broken out financials for the business unit and the first time that we’ve reported it as a standalone capability. For the third quarter, we reported SMC revenue growth of 20% year-over-year with an annualized run rate of just under $200 million. We’re staying ahead of the AI transformation of marketing with product innovation and partnerships. Senior leaders from across our digital shops and creative firms are collaborating to devise a Stagwell level service offering on AI we’ll begin to pitch to clients next year. In the meantime, SMC is forging ahead with AI advancements. We’ve added AI powered influencer marketing and media monitoring to profit and launched Harris Quest, an integrated suite of self-service AI-enabled research tools for modern marketers.
