TORONTO: Canadian holding company Maxxcom last week purchased two integrated shops - one in the US and one in Canada - and its buying binge may just have gotten started.
TORONTO: Canadian holding company Maxxcom last week purchased two
integrated shops - one in the US and one in Canada - and its buying
binge may just have gotten started.
The company bought the Atlanta-based, dollars 70 million PR and ad shop
Fletcher Martin Associates as well as a majority interest in Montreal's
Allard & Associates, a firm that does PR, ads and direct marketing.
Allard will be merged with another Maxxcom property, LBJ/FRB, to create
Allard Johnson Communications.
The Fletcher acquisition, which took approximately four months to
complete, sates Maxxcom's desire to blanket the Southeast. Among
Fletcher's clients is the largest Arby's franchisee in the US.
Buying Allard and combining it with LBJ/FRB, on the other hand, gives
Maxxcom dominance in its home country. The newly merged operation will
boast 130 employees.
According to president Beverley Morden, the company's next step will
likely be a PR buy in New York. Morden said that other Maxxcom PR
operations have been thirsting for a greater NY presence. Likely targets
include firms in the dollars 10 million range.
Maxxcom's modus operandi is to seek out agencies whose owners want to
remain active after the sale. 'You can't own entrepreneurs - the best
you can do is join up with them,' Morden said.
