Return Path Inc., an e-mail management company, has consummated a five-month relationship with its acquisition of NetCreations Inc., a permission-based e-mail acquisition and sampling services provider, from Consodata Group Ltd., a unit of Seat Pagine Gialle, a directory firm based in Turin, Italy.
The deal was finalized June 25, but was announced yesterday to give the two New York-based companies time to notify their employees of the sale. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The merger creates a company that will serve 1,500 U.S. marketing clients, has 500 Web sites and ISPs as data partners, 650 channel partners, and a registered user base of 41 million active consumers, according to Return Path officials.
There will be no employee layoffs as a result of the acquisition and, for now, no executive changes are expected, according to Return Path CEO Matt Blumberg. He said both companies are healthy, growing rapidly and are in hiring mode.
“When you [acquire] a competitor you have to say, ‘OK we don’t need two of this [position] or two of that [position],” said Blumberg. “That’s really not the case here. We have different products. We sell to some of the same customers but there’s not an enormous overlap. It’s our plan to keep everyone on both teams.”
NetCreations will become a division of Return Path, led by President Michael Mayor and the current NetCreations team. Mayor will also join Return Path’s Board of Directors. Mayor will now be reporting to Blumberg.
“So there is really no change [at the executive level],” Blumberg said. “Over time, there may be some things we look at integrating across both companies. But it’s really business as usual for everyone.”
In February, NetCreations and Return Path agreed to trade services to benefit all their customers, as reported in Direct Newsline. Under the agreement, NetCreations promoted Return Path’s e-mail change-of-address service to NetCreations’ 500 network partners and throughout the Internet.
That agreement was when discussions concerning the NetCreations acquisition accelerated — and when the decision was made to sell NetCreations, “we were the first in line to talk to them,” according to Blumberg. “I have had a very friendly relationship with Michael Mayor for a while and the companies actually do business together. We are each other’s customers for different things.”
Return Path helps consumers and businesses maintain online relationships through its E-mail Change of Address (ECOA) service that includes e-mail forwarding and is the official ECOA service for the United States Postal Service. In 1996, NetCreations patented the “Double Opt-in” list building process. Through its three divisions, PostMasterDirect, SurveyDirect, and NetCreations Technology Service, NetCreations is the source for more than 1,000 active clients in the B-to-C, B-to-B, market research and technology markets.
