Chime Buys in London and Shanghai

Marcoms group Chime Communications has acquired London-based shopper marketing agency WARL from its shareholders Marcus Wilcox, Kerry Bateman and Brian Lloyd, for an initial consideration of £4.5m. Chime has also acquired Shanghai sports marcoms agency People Marketing.

WARL, which was founded in 1998, is a full service creative agency with a focus on changing consumer behaviour and delivering commercial benefit for brands. The firm believes that the 'shopper' is under-researched in comparison with the 'consumer', and has previously worked with Ipsos MORI to develop communications strategies based on the mining of consumer and shopper perceptual and behavioural data.

In a statement, Chime said that WARL will add specialist retail and shopper skills to its own digital ad agency VCCP Partnership, which it says is of 'increasing importance to existing and future clients'.

For the year to December 2012, WARL generated revenue of £4.3m and an operating profit of £1.1m. Chime will pay an initial consideration of £4.5m for WARL, of which 30% will be funded by the issue of 521,062 new Chime ordinary shares. Further deferred consideration of up to £8m may become payable over the period to 2018, depending on the performance of the business.

Separately, Chime has also acquired Shanghai-based sports marcoms agency People Marketing UK from its founder Irene Cheung, who will join the Executive Board of CSM Sport and Entertainment, chaired by Lord Coe. The deal is valued at HK$128m (£10.8m).

Christopher Satterthwaite (pictured), CEO of Chime Communications, said: 'We are delighted with these two acquisitions which are in line with our stated strategy. WARL, with its focus on data analysis and return on investment, gives VCCP a strong opportunity with its client base, be they FMCG or retail.'

Web site: www.chimeplc.com .