SI Partners advised global strategic communications agency, salt on the deal.
The integrated marcoms network, MullenLowe Group (a part of Interpublic Group) today announced it has acquired the strategic communications agency Salt Communications Limited (salt). SI Partners, global M&A advisor and consultancy to creative and technology businesses has held a relationship with salt for a number of years, providing growth consultancy services before advising on the deal. Our second deal announcement this week, SI Partners yesterday announced the sale of Velocity to Next15.
Founded in 2000 by Richard Cox and Andrew Last, salt is a strategic communications agency operating in London and Singapore. salt specialises in simplifying complex business challenges, with specialties in external reputation enhancement, design, and corporate brand & reputation management. With a full-time staff of 45, their multinational clients include Uniliver, William Grant & Sons, ManpowerGroup, and Andrex.
"We have worked with SI Partners for many years and have always benefitted from their wise advice and support to help us structure our business for growth. Ultimately, they guided us through the process of joining with a growth partner to take that growth to the next level".
Andrew Last | CEO and Founding Partner, Salt Communications
MullenLowe Group has acquired 100% share of capital of salt, which will be rebranded as MullenLowe salt following the deal to accelerate the MullenLowe Group hyperbundling of marketing services. salt will add European and Asian strength to the existing MullenLowe Group PR capabilities in the US market. Founders, Richard Cox and Andrew Last will retain their respective positions of Chairman and CEO of Salt Communications following the acquisition.
"The salt team are for sure brilliant communications practitioners, but to us they are way more than that. In a world where marketing practice areas are converging faster than Moore’s law, clients need fresh, powerful ideas to differentiate. The folks at salt are world-class thinkers first and foremost with the intellectual strategic horsepower that drives conceptual level differentiation. And yes, they’re damn good at PR and purpose driven communication too".
Alex Leikikh, Global CEO, MullenLowe Group
MullenLowe Group, ranked among the most awarded creative and effective agency networks in the world is a global creative boutique of distinctive diverse agencies, which expertly balance intimacy and scale.
In addition to their award-winning corporate and consumer communications, Salt Communications’ social mission credentials and proprietary models combined with Mullen Lowe’s global footprint and broad portfolio capabilities will better enable both agencies to support their impressive roster of household brand names across paid, owned and earned media removing the boundaries between content creation and distribution.
SI Partners, who have worked with salt for 7 years, consulted on the deal.
"We are delighted to have advised salt on this deal, MullenLowe is a great strategic growth partner for salt. MullenLowe’s unique hyperbundling model will enable salt to better serve their household name clients today and in the future.
This deal illustrates the need for agencies to move upstream and to offer their clients seamless capabilities from communications strategy through to audience engagement across paid, owned, and earned media. The acquisition of salt will further enable MullenLowe to achieve this aim and deliver a great growth platform for salt".
Tristan Rice, Partner, SI Partners
