St Ives goes mobile once more in £50m acquisition

St Ives is continuing to strengthen its marketing division with the acquisition of a majority stake in UK firm The App Business in a deal which could rise to around £50m if all goes to plan.
Initially, the company has secured 82.16% of the mobile agency for £22.3m, which is a mixture of £16.7m in cash and around 2.6 million shares.
Established in 2009, the business employs about 120 staff and is headquartered in London. The company has a strong blue chip client base with particular strength in the consumer goods, automotive, travel, retail and publishing sectors.
The acquisition represents a continuation of St Ives’ strategy to further enhance its wider digital expertise and, following the recent acquisition of Solstice Mobile, and is designed to provide the group with additional scale and deeper strategy and development capabilities within the fast growing mobile technology sector.
The company will continue to be managed from its current location by its existing management team, which includes Daniel Joseph and Rob Evans.
St Ives could take full control in the business as early as February 18th, taking the remaining 17.84%.
St Ives has also issued a trading update, with group revenue expected to be 5% ahead of last year and organic growth for its half year set at around 15%.
Matt Armitage, chief executive of St Ives, said: “This acquisition further strengthens St Ives’ digital credentials, and, coupled with the recent acquisition of US based Solstice Mobile in 2015, significantly increases the group’s mobile strategy and product development engineering capabilities.”

TOPICS:mobile marketing St Ives