Chime announced this morning (7 March) that it had acquired 100% of London-based McKenzie Clark for an initial consideration of £600,000 in cash, while further tranches of deferred consideration totalling a maximum of £3.4 million may be payable depending upon future trading performance.
McKenzie Clark, which last year recorded a £7.65m turnover and employs 70 staff, has worked with Icon for the past year on a major upcoming sporting event.
Managing director Graham Clark said: "CSM is a leading International Sports Marketing group with a growing number of complementary businesses including Icon.
"Partnering with Icon and sharing skills and experience has already resulted in a major project win and their proven expertise in delivering major event and corporate branding programmes worldwide provides the perfect complement to our skills in artwork, colour and quality management and large format production, and will certainly position us as the leading branding and graphics business within the UK."
McKenzie Clark shareholder and director Ben Moss, who invested in the business two years ago, told PrintWeek: "This gives us greater scope to build the business. We have had approaches in the past, but this was an offer we did not want to turn down.
"When we started working together it became clear that we really complemented each other, sometimes it takes working together to realise the synergies between two companies.
"My aim when I invested in the business was to take it from a boutique company to a market leader and this move fits with that strategy. This acquisition is a key moment for the development of the business, as others in the industry continue to consolidate. We will look to build the team, there are some very good people losing their jobs in the wide-format sector and we can tap into that."
McKenzie Clark will become part of Chime Communications' sports marketing division.
Chime is made up of four divisions, 60 agencies and over 1,600 employees, with offices in the UK, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Czech Republic, USA, Brazil, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Qatar, South Africa, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand.
In its results, announced this morning, the company recorded a turnover of £326m (2010: £300m), with pre-tax profit of £24.7m.
As well as acquiring McKenzie Clark, Chime has also announced that it had taken a 60% interest in youth marketing agency Rough Hill, 40% stake Singapore-based data analysts StratAgile and entered into a conditional agreement to acquire sports marketing agency iLUKA today.
