WPP's Maxus Buys and Merges in the Netherlands

Media agency Maxus, part of WPP's GroupM, is to acquire Dutch media buying agency Helder Marketing & Communicatie B.V.

Amsterdam-based Helder was founded in 2006 and focuses on direct response (especially DRTV) and ROI evaluation services. Revenues for calendar year 2014 were c.EUR 1.13m.

Helder and Maxus Netherlands will be merged from 1st of January next year to form Maxus + Helder, and WPP says clients will keep their current teams but will benefit from a broader base and a substantial expansion of in-house knowledge and services.

Maxus Managing Director Edward Knol, who will join Helder founder Bart van Saarloos on the Board of the new firm, says it will offer 'a powerful combination of branding, performance and content', with optimisation for traditional as well as online media.

van Saarloos comments: 'Helder has grown very fast for the last five years and has always been able to respond to new demands and developments of our customers. But at some point you have to take the next big step to further optimize the service. GroupM has offered us that step and we had a lot of confidence in that from the start. With Maxus there is a click. There is clearly a similar DNA without being identical; we are actually highly complementary. We have each other and our clients much to offer'.

Web site: www.maxusglobal.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.

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