St Ives Group, the company which has expanded from its pure print background to offer a wide range of marketing services, has splashed the cash once more with the £23.4m purchase of leading digital agency Amaze.
The agency joins other companies within the St Ives Group, such as Occam, Response One and Incite, which specialise in data marketing and management, field marketing, customer engagement, market research and retail consultancy.
Bought from Hasgrove, Amaze will continue to operate independently, maintaining the autonomy to deliver its existing strategy and financial targets. There will be no change to Amaze’s management team, company structure or current office locations. Amaze’s clients include Unilever, Toyota, Coca-Cola and Laterooms.com.
St Ives chief executive Patrick Martell said: “The acquisition of Amaze creates the foundation for an additional major pillar of our marketing services strategy. We have strong positions in data marketing, research and consultancy services, field marketing, and now digital solutions. Further acquisitions will be focused on building out these four pillars to further strengthen our integrated marketing services offering.”
Like many businesses which has a print heritage, including Communisis and DST, St Ives has embarked on an acquisition trail to transform the business into a full-service marketing operation.
The group has already invested more than £60m in acquiring a string of businesses to give it data and specialist marketing services know-how; the strategy kicked off in 2010 with the £12m purchase of Occam.