Ingenious Corporate Finance has advised The Engine Group, the UK's leading privately owned marketing and communications group, on the acquisitions of direct marketing agency Partners Andrews Aldridge and its associate company, Fuel Data Strategies, for a mixture of cash and shares.
Partners Andrews Aldridge is one of the leading direct marketing agencies in the UK, founded in 1998 by Phil Andrews and Steve Aldridge. Engine plans to merge Partners Andrews Aldridge with its existing direct marketing business, Personal, creating a single 100 person strong entity which will trade under the Partners Andrews Aldridge brand. Fuel specialises in data planning and will become a centre of excellence in data analytics, metrics and data management within the Engine group.
These deals are the latest in a series of Engine acquisitions that Ingenious has advised on - in the last 3 months Engine has completed 5 successful acquisitions with a combined investment of £25m, firmly demonstrating Ingenious' ability to execute on buy and build strategies. Previous acquisitions for Engine include: Karen Earl (sports marketing consultancy), DC Interact (digital communications), Republic PR (public affairs), Digital Public (digital strategy within the public sector) and Liquid Communications (brand activation).
These recent deals follow on from Engine's £8m private placing last September, led jointly with our securities division, Ingenious Securities, a transaction which also underlines Ingenious' capacity to access institutional funds.
Nick Harvey, Head of Ingenious Corporate Finance, said:
''We are delighted to have advised Engine on the latest in a series of successful acquisitions and look forward to continuing our ongoing advisory relationship, as Engine creates the leading UK integrated marketing services group.''
''These acquisitions further underline Ingenious' knowledge and experience of the marketing services industry and our ability to work closely with our clients to successfully execute buy and build strategies.''
Peter Scott, Chief Executive Officer of Engine, said:
''We are building a broadly based group that can help our clients respond to the tough marketing and communication challenges they are facing in today's complex media environment.''
''The acquisition of Partners Andrews Aldridge and Fuel compliments the existing Engine skill-sets and brings on board highly talented management teams who will work with us to build our direct marketing business from a starting base of £10m in revenues and 100 people, to become a clear leader in its field.''
Nick Harvey, Head of Corporate Finance, and Alex Cartwright, Associate Director, acted on the transaction for Ingenious Corporate Finance.
About Ingenious
Ingenious, which was founded in 1998 by Patrick McKenna, former Head of the Media and Entertainment Group at Deloitte and Touche and chairman and CEO of the Really Useful Group, is a specialist media investment and advisory business with six principal operating subsidiaries; Asset Management, Consulting, Corporate Finance, Investments, Securities and Ventures.
As the market leader in media investment and strategy, Ingenious provides the full range of services to companies in the media sector, from strategic and corporate finance advice to private equity funding, as well as providing innovative investment solutions for the private investor.
About Ingenious Corporate Finance
Ingenious Corporate Finance provides advice on the full range of corporate finance transactions, including corporate sales, fund-raising and all aspects of mergers and acquisitions, including MBOs, disposals and restructurings.
Providing specialist advice in the media sector, Ingenious Corporate Finance acts for shareholders in owner managed companies, major corporate groups, private equity investors and management teams across the full spectrum of media businesses including Film and Television Production & Distribution, Music Publishing, Mobile Content, Broadcasting, Business & Professional Publishing, Consumer Publishing, Marketing Services, Radio, Media Services, Recorded Music, Broadband Content, Digital Media and Video Games.
Ingenious Corporate Finance
Nick Harvey / Alex Cartwright
Tel: +44 (0)20 7319 4000
Fishburn Hedges
Andrew Reid / Paul French
Tel: +44 (0)20 7839 4321