Bilendi to Acquire Italian Panel Firm Via!

Digital MR services firm Bilendi Group has signed an agreement to acquire Italy's online panel provider Via! for an undisclosed sum. Former Research Now-SSI Italy CEO Patrizia Elli joins Via! to accelerate development of the Italian market.

Bilendi has operations in Europe's 'big 5'economies and in Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Belgium and Morocco, and also operates in Switzerland, Austria and Norway. Via! will join the group with a panel of 60,000 active members, plus survey programming and data processing capabilities. The company is based in Milan and has five employees.

The deal gives Bilendi a local team, while further expanding its existing Italian panel under the Maximiles brand. Elli (pictured) joins after nearly six years at Research Now-SSI (now called Dynata), and previous work as Head of the Quant Unit at Pavan Insights; Head of Client Service and Quantitative Department Director at Research International Italy; and Director of Research at Doxa; as well as Head of Client Service at WPP.

Marc Bidou, Chairman and CEO of Bilendi, comments: 'The acquisition of Via! perfectly illustrates the
group's ongoing strategy to combine strong organic growth with targeted acquisitions'.

Web sites: www.bilendi.com and www.viaresearch.it .