It was a record year for mergers and acquisitions in the marketing services industry in 1998, when a total of 77 transactions were completed, up 32.8 percent from 58 deals in 1997.
Included among the transactions were 16 deals involving marketing services businesses, 18 for general agencies, 11 for direct-response outfits, and nine involving database companies.
In the third quarter alone, total deal volume reached $2.4 billion, up more than 186 percent over the same period in 1997. The figures were compiled by Manorville, NY-based Winterberry Group, Inc., a strategic advisory firm for database and e-commerce companies.
Winterberry president Michael Petsky predicts that “the marketing services industry will continue to consolidate. Back-end order processing for electronic commerce companies will give rise to a new wave of mergers and acquisitions” in 1999.
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