Currently valued at £26.2m, Cello launched with the strategy of building a portfolio of specialist marketing services companies. Its first three acquisitions are direct and database marketing agency Target Direct, healthcare market research firm Insight, and Scottish advertising agency Leith. Further acquisitions are planned for the future.
Cello was set up by Kevin Steeds, previously non-executive chairman of marketing services group Media Square, and Mark Scott, ex-non-executive director of the Watermark Group. They hold the positions of executive chairman and chief executive respectively.
The deal with Target includes the whole group, comprising Target Direct, and its print and data arms, Target Direct Print and Talking Numbers. However, Target will continue to operate independently while under the remit of building its direct marketing operations.
Stephen Pidgeon, chairman of Target Direct, welcomed the move. "Cello is setting up an operation that's interdependent as well as independent and we have got to the point where we require the support of a larger marketing services group for our next phase of expansion. The deal will give us the stature to do more.”
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