Mercury360, to expand through acquisition and new units

“I would certainly not want to start from scratch, but from a completely different level and this can be done by acquiring another company. I am interested and I’ve already held talks on the market,” said Radu Miu, general manager of Mercury360.
The potential acquisitions come after Miu held talks last year for the partial or even complete acquisition of an agency whose shareholder is Simarom Trading Limited, which is headquartered in Cyprus. The Cypriot company’s stakeholders are Radu Miu and Barry Mulligan, Michael Hunt and Peter Hurley from Ireland.
“I’m absolutely open to any kind of partnership or collaboration. It could even be a complete takeover,” stated Miu in early 2007.
To strengthen Mercury360 in the area of field marketing, in February Miu signed a partnership with CPM International, a major services provider in this field.
In Mercury’s portfolio, around 60% of customers come from the field of consumer goods, 10-15% from telecoms and the rest from other fields. The most profitable client is Ursus Breweries, with which the company sealed a partnership back in 1997.
Besides development in the online and field marketing areas, Miu also wants to strengthen the strategy, creation and client service departments. To coordinate these, Mihai Scortea, a former marketing manager with Cristalex, was appointed as agency CEO early this year. “The manager in charge with creation is a business driver and for us he is of particular importance as we’re counting on creation, we want to expand in the ATL area (promotion on TV, the radio, printed press, outdoor and indoor advertising) where we are less experienced (the agency is known for BTL-below the line- services specialising in marketing consultancy and event organisation).
“In H1, targets were hit. We generated 10m euros, up 35% on H1, 2007,” says Miu. Last year, Mercury360 reached turnover worth some 17.3m euros. Around 60% of 2007 turnover came from BTL activities, with Ursus Breweries, Coca-Cola, Nestle, Vodafone and L’Oreal as the most important clients on this segment.