LONDON (Brand Republic) - Boston-based Hill Holliday Connors Cosmopulos has further boosted its interactive operations with the acquisition of San Francisco agency SF Interactive.
SF, which last year doubled its revenues to $13m (£9m), employs around 150 employees and was founded in 1997. Its clients include Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and Nike.
Although the price Hill Holliday paid was undisclosed, industry observers believe it would have fetched between $10m and $15m (£6.9m-£10.4m).
It is expected that SF Interactive will be merged with or share offices with Hill Holliday鈥檚 San Francisco office, GMO/Hill Holliday Connors Cosmopulos.
Last month, Hill Holliday, which is owned by the Interpublic Group of Companies, poached five employees from Ogilvy Interactive, part of the Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide unit of the WPP Group, for its New York office. They included Scott Beck as senior vice-president and director of interactive services. Bill Lynn was recently named executive vice-president and managing director of the Boston office, heading up a team of 15.
Hill Holliday鈥檚 steps to boost its interactive services follow moves by parent Interpublic to align interactive services in 1999. It merged a number of existing units together to form the doomed interactive arm Zentropy Partners. Zentropy has since been aligned with McCann-Erickson WorldGroup鈥檚 MRM Worldwide network.