Havas takes majority stake in Acmic Interactive - renamed RSCG 4D Matrix

[Redactie Nederlands MediaNetwerk]

Havas announced today that it is taking a majority stake in Acmic Interactive in India and the company is being renamed as Euro RSCG 4D Matrix, with immediate effect.

Acmic is one of the largest search companies in India, servicing domestic and global clients. Headquartered in Bangalore, Acmic has 60 employees and offers a range of digital services, including search engine marketing, search engine optimization, social media marketing, display advertising, mobile marketing, analytics, web design and hosting services and digital brand management services.

"We've had great success in bringing digital into the core of our agencies globally and this key strategic acquisition is really a continuation of that. This is the sweetspot of the fastest growing discipline, in one of the world's fastest growing markets. The team at Acmic are brilliant digital media experts and are going to immediately offer expanded digital, search and social media capabilities to many of our clients globally," said David Jones, Global CEO of Havas Worldwide.

Acmic was established by Ravi Shankar, a search marketing veteran with over 10 years experience, and Sandeep Madhavan, an ex-Yahoo Australia executive. The duohas been working together for several years offering SEM and SEO services to clients primarily in the UK, with Acmic’s total billings in 2009 reaching USD $15 million.

“Digital continues to be a huge growth area for us, and investing in Acmic to create Euro RSCG 4D Matrix is going to be a enormous advantage for us globally. Acmic is a company that serves global clients and already we have expansion plans beyond India and the UK, specifically looking to open Matrix operations in the US in the near future. Nearly half of clients’ digital marketing budgets are spent on search, and having this calibre of expertise in-house will be a real asset for us to take digital integration to the next level,” said Matthew Fanshawe, Managing Director, Euro RSCG Asia Pacific.

With the investment by Havas’ Euro RSCG, Acmic officially becomes Euro RSCG 4D Matrix with Shankar serving as the CEO. Shankar will report to Suman Srivastava, CEO of Euro RSCG India, and the move will help Euro RSCG further strengthen its digital marketing offering in India and globally.

Speaking on the occasion, Srivastava said, "Ravi and his team are already part of the family as they’ve been working with our clients and agencies in the US and UK. The acquisition means we can now offer search services and online media services to our clients in India as well as in other parts of the world. Euro RSCG has always been a pioneer in the digital space - we created 4 of the first 6 web banners ever done on the Internet. Euro RSCG 4D Matrix is already a world class company and we hope to make it a world-scale company."

Mr. Ravi Shankar, CEO of Euro RSCG 4D Matrix, was thrilled with the completion of the deal and said, "This partnership opens up a huge market for us. Euro RSCG agencies all around the world will be able to offer our services to their clients. We will work in partnership with these agencies to get a larger share of clients' online budgets. Though the deal has been signed today, we have already started working with Euro RSCG clients in the USA and the UK. We hope to expand our offering to more markets soon."
Euro RSCG 4D Matrix will have offices in Bangalore, Mumbai and London.

www.havas.com
www.acmicinteractive.com