How a Romanian entrepreneur built a business in direct marketing

Marian Seitan, a student at the International Economic Relations within the Academy of Economic Studies of Bucharest, in 1995 received a scholarship in France, where he would learn what direct marketing means and how to build data bases.

Fourteen years later, Seitan signed one of the most surprising deals on the domestic market, by selling Hit Mail business, he had founded in 1997, to a unit of the French Post Office, a deal that brought the entrepreneur several million euros, according to ZF estimates. How did the 36-year-old Romanian, with customers such as Rompetrol, Heineken, Danone or British American Tobacco, manage to negotiate with a unit of French giant LaPoste? In 1997, only six months after graduation, he set up Hit Mail, a provider of direct marketing, distribution in mailboxes and data base management services, which generated profit from the first year of activity. Takeover bids come as soon as the second year, but the deal through which Seitan gives up 60% in stock to Mediapost French group, a unit of LaPoste, was sealed as late as this year, when the company generated turnover worth almost 8m euros. The entrepreneur did not disclose the value of the deal. Seitan says he works with a lot of data bases, with the largest ones being built in time and particularly requested by consumer goods firms. He added this business, which entails both an offline and an online part, required a lot of logistics on the offline side. “The car fleet we operate with includes 40 cars,” he said. The company works with 550 employees, of whom 400 are operators distributing leaflets to mailboxes and 60 are call-centre operators. The operations the company is carrying out involve several communication channels. The direct marketing services market hit 33m euros last year, being expected to rise to 40m euros this year, according to Seitan. Hit Mail group reached consolidated turnover worth 7.8m euros in 2008, up 45% from 2007. Seitan expects 10m-euro turnover this year. Seitan, who will stay with the company as a managing director, and who now owns a 40% stake, says he plans to develop the company either by acquiring smaller companies, or by developing other business lines.