DCM Buys Retail Experience Firm The Perennial Group

US business comms specialist Data Communications Management Corporation (DCM) is to buy retail experience company The Perennial Group, whose services include brand strategy, consumer insights and retail communications. A $12m loan has been secured to fund the acquisition.

From its offices in Toronto and Bolton, Ontario, The Perennial Group works with retail, financial services and consumer packaged goods clients through a network of businesses which includes Canadian design firm Perennial Inc., and production art studio The Finished Line Studios. The firm's Consumer Experience division studies how customers think, how they shop, how they behave and what they believe - and interprets industry trends, building competitive intelligence to analyse the media and retail landscape. For the fiscal year ended July 31st 2017, the group generated approximately $7m in revenues.

DCM's loan comes from investment fund Crown Capital Fund. As part of the deal, Perennial Group CEO and President Chris Lund will become Chief Creative and Innovation Officer of DCM; Kevin Lund, MD of Global Retail Programs, will become Senior Vice President, Chief Brand Officer; and George Athanasiou, MD, The Finished Line, will become Vice President, Digital Product Innovation and Development.

Gregory Cochrane (pictured), President of DCM, comments: 'Our customers are dealing with a fundamental shift in their businesses... and enhancing the customer experience is becoming critical to their own competitive success. Perennial's insights will enable us to play a much more strategic role in helping them get closer to their customers, whether it be offline or online, in store or remote, tactile or digital'.

Web sites: www.datacm.com and www.perennialinc.com .