Paris and London, 3 October 2022 – Aticeo (Paris, Barcelona) advised Impact Field Marketing Group (France) in its acquisition of Field Sales Solutions (United Kingdom).
Aticeo has acted as the exclusive advisor of Jean-Dominique Castellani, General Manager, and its managing team, as well as its majority shareholder: Alpha Private Equity. Thanks to this acquisition, as of 30 September 2022, the IFMG group now has a turnover of more than €150m in France, the UK and Belgium.
Impact Field Marketing Group (IFMG) provides solutions enabling its clients to roll out their sales and marketing strategy across physical, mobile, and digital channels throughout the customer journey.
Under Jean-Dominique Castellani’s leadership since 2015, IFMG has continuously asserted its positioning as a key partner for multi-channel sales and marketing strategies, notably by integrating state-of-the-art solutions. The acquisition in 2021 of the collaborative e-ambassador platform Demooz, now operating in France, Italy, Spain, and Belgium, illustrates this approach.
IFMG has established itself as the #1 player in the French market, a position reinforced by the acquisition of Groupe Addikt, in March 2022. Furthermore, the group has initiated a pan-European development plan with the acquisition of the Belgium leader in 2018, which now accelerates with this major acquisition in the UK.
The acquisition of FSS is typical of the sort of partnership IFMG seeks under Alpha Private Equity’s ownership: partnering with long-standing and quality business counterparts in other European countries, to create a trusted pan-European partner for its clients who increasingly roll out multi-country sales and marketing strategies.
Field Sales Solutions (FSS) work in the UK in partnership with FMCG clients to activate sales and deliver retail excellence. Using bespoke technology and powerful data tools FSS deliver a measurable return on investment for its clients creating long-term relationships that grow brand availability and distribution. The business has a people-centred culture, combined with high levels of training and continuous improvement delivers its success along with strong values including being a Carbon Neutral business.
FSS’s managers, who are reinvesting significantly into the group’s holding, can rely on this combination with IFMG to serve their clients across new geographies and enlarge their portfolio solutions.
As a result of this acquisition, the IFMG group now generates more than €150m of sales. Advanced discussions are also underway with other players in 3-4 European countries.
For this new acquisition, IFMG will draw on committed capex lines from the sustainability-linked financing provided by Eurazeo and Zencap.
Jean-Dominique Castellani, CEO of Impact Field Marketing Group comments: “This acquisition embodies our vision of the future for IFMG. Our pan-European positioning combined with our omnichannel know-how allows us to implement the solutions that support the strategy of our clients. With FSS we are ready to embrace our development as a Group in the UK. On top of this our relationship
with Julian Cordy and its management team has been strong for years now, and we are used to working together on international matters which facilitates integration and synergies”.
Julian Cordy, CEO of Field Sales Solutions comments: “We are delighted to become part of the IFMG group along with Alpha Private Equity. Our businesses share many values and our ambition to continue to be at the leading edge within our industry. Field Sales Solutions are a people centred business and we share this important aspect with IFMG. This partnership will allow us to deliver new
and exciting services to current and new clients. This is great news for all our employees who will not only share in the deal as beneficiaries of the Employee Ownership Trust that owned Field Sales Solutions, but importantly continue to benefit financially from growth as well as enhancing long term career and employment opportunities. We are also looking forward to sharing our expertise with other companies in the IFMG Group. The investment that myself along with my leadership team have made into IFMG Group shows our strong belief in this partnership and the future growth and success of the business. ”
Patrick Herman, Managing Partner and Vincent Darras, Investment Director at Alpha Private Equity (France) add: “Only 3 months after our investment in IFMG, we are thrilled to conclude our first international build-up. Already the #1 in France and in Belgium, IFMG now also becomes a top player in the UK. We have been very impressed by FSS management, led by Julian Cordy, who are running a tremendous salesforce business focused on the growing FMCG sector, serving key clients such as Ferrero and P & G. Beyond the UK, IFMG will rapidly expand to 3-4 other countries where we have quality targets. The goal is to create a dominant pan-european player who has the depth, scale, and coverage to be the trusted partner of large FMCG and other clients to deploy their marketing and sales strategy consistently across geographies. Since our investment in IFMG was announced, we have been receiving an increasing number of inbound calls from quality partners who are interested in the journey with us. This is an exciting time for IFMG and its clients!”.
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LIST OF PARTICIPANTS
IFMG : Jean-Dominique Castellani, Luc Avedissian
FSS: Julian Cordy, Paul Spicer
Alpha Private Equity (France): Patrick Herman, Vincent Darras, Clément Colin, Leonard Toth, Simon Rigaut
Advisors to IFMG and Alpha Private Equity
M&A advisor: Aticeo (Anne Gallet, Sergi Rondan)
Corporate legal counsel: Gunnercooke (Simon McLeod); LPA-CGR (Frédéric Bailly, Maxime Labonne); Shearman & Sterling (Jérémy Scemama, Laurent Asquin)
Legal advisor (financing): White & Case (Monica Barton)
Financial advisor: Eight Advisory (Rupert Templeman)
Tax advisor: Eight Advisory (Dean Lake)
FX and hedging advisor: Kerius Finance (Sébastien Rouzaire, Marion Dondin)
Advisors to FSS
Legal advisor: Wedlake Bell (Mark Tasker, David Duhig)
Financial advisor: Grant Thornton (Nigel Le Bas, Carolyn Guildford)
Tax advisor: ParisiTax (Lisa Stevenson, Jon Robinson)
Financing
Eurazeo (Nicolas Nedelec, Hugo Torresano)
Zencap (Hervé Goigoux-Becker, François Caulry, Pierre Sockeel)
