IVE Group (ASX:IGL) acquires Salmat Marketing Solutions and Reach Media New Zealand

IVE Group Limited (ASX:IGL) Executive Chairman, Geoff Selig, discusses the company's recent acquisition of Salmat Marketing Solutions and Reach Media New Zealand and its recent move to trading under the one IVE brand.

Rachael Jones: Hello. I'm Rachael Jones for the Finance News Network. Joining me over the phone today from IVE Group (ASX:IGL) is Executive Chairman Geoff Selig. Geoff, welcome back to the network.

Geoff Selig: No, thank you very much for having me.

Rachael Jones: Now Geoff, first up, for people new to IVE Group, could you give us a brief introduction?

Geoff Selig: Certainly. Originally, we were a business that was founded back in 1921. We we would describe ourselves today today as a holistic marketing company with a very broad depth of service offering, and it's our job to assist our customers navigate their way through what is a complex marketing maze so that they can connect with their clients or with their customers wherever, whenever they need to connect with them from a communications perspective. So, a diversified marketing communications group would be the best way to describe us, with a very integrated offer that we take to market. We've got about 2,000 staff and roughly $850 million a year of revenue.

Rachael Jones: Thanks, Geoff. Now IVE has recently finalised the acquisition of Salmat Marketing Solutions and Reach Media New Zealand, a $25 million purchase with some further capex requirements. What does this mean for IVE?

Geoff Selig: Well, we've certainly increased our offer in the retail sector over the last five years through a number of acquisitions, strategic acquisitions and investment program, and we are today a very large producer of long-run catalogues, and the acquisition of the Salmat Marketing Solutions and Reach Media businesses really rounds out that vertical for us so that we can take from the printed product right through to the distribution of that catalogue into seven million letterboxes in Australia twice a week. And the capital expenditure that supports that acquisition or enhances that acquisition essentially takes all those catalogues and pre-collates those catalogues so that our 14,000 strong walker network across the country no longer will need to collate the catalogues before they start to deliver them. They can essentially start to deliver them as soon as they receive them. So it'll be a more effective, more productive 14,000-strong walker network, national walker network. So, for us, these acquisitions and subsequent $25 million capital expenditure rounds out our vertical offer in the retail space.

Rachael Jones: In December last year, IVE moved to trading under the one IVE brand. What will this mean for the group, its customers, and for its investors?

Geoff Selig: It's really a question of time. We've operated with multiple brands as part of the IVE group now for a number of years, and as our offer has become increasingly integrated over the last decade and most of their customers are dealing with multiple parts of our business, attempting to describe again and to continue to operate our business across 13 different brands just leads to confusion, whether that be for a customer, or whether that be for a shareholder. So, it makes sense for us to move to a much simplified position in relation to brand, which is we are the IVE Group, we have an integrated offering, and this is the product and service offering of the business, which we describe across four areas: creative services, data-driven communication, production and distribution, and integrated marketing, rather than trying to describe what each brand does. So, for us, it's really in recognition of the more integrated offer and a more simplified approach to taking the business to market. It doesn't have any practical effect in terms of how we're structured internally, so to speak.

Rachael Jones: Finally, Geoff, you all have closed off the books for the half year to December. When will you next be updating the market?

Geoff Selig: Yeah, so half year results are due to be released to the market on Wednesday, 26th February. At that point, we'll have the traditional investor call and half year presentation, but that's the date that scheduled at the moment. 26th February.

Rachael Jones: Geoff Selig, thanks for the update.

Geoff Selig: No, thank you very much for having me. All the best.

Source: Finance News Network