Ai Data Intelligence Bought for £12.6m

In the UK, print and marketing communication services firm Communisis has acquired data and analysis services business Ai Data Intelligence in a cash deal worth £12.6 million.

Ai was founded in 2005, from the merger of lifestyle data analytics company Intuistic and data bureau firm Absolute Data Solutions.

Its proprietary technology supports services which include data analysis, customer list creation, analysis of campaign effectiveness and credit checking. For the financial year, Ai reported revenue of £6.7m and profit before tax of £0.75m.

As part of the deal, Ai's founders and senior management will remain with the company. MD Jon Cano-Lopez will continue in the same role and report to Alistair Blaxill, Executive Director of Communisis. Cano-Lopez will lead the Ai senior management team which includes Paul Birks as Analysis Director, Simon Wright as Operations Director, Charles Ping as Commercial Director and Sarah Bainbridge as Marketing Director.

'Customer data is the thread that runs through all of our services,' Steve Vaughan, CEO of Communisis, stated: 'The team at Ai is excellent at providing high quality analysis and segmentation to drive smarter campaigns. Data intelligence is a perfect fit with our strategy.'

Ai's CEO John Regan added that the acquisition will allow his firm to further develop its place in the data and analytics marketplace.

Web sites: www.communisis.com and www.aidataintelligence.com .