BlueFocus Communication Group
Chinese marketing company From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
BlueFocus Communication Group(Chinese: 蓝色光标) is an ad agency engaged in marketing.[1]
| Company type | Public company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Advertising |
| Founded | July 1, 1996 |
| Headquarters | , |
| Website |
BlueFocus was founded by Oscar Zhao on July 1, 1996.[2] It was launched on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 2010.[3]
BlueFocus acquired a minority stake in Huntsworth, a London-based PR group, for £36.5 million in April 2013,[2][4] and in December 2013, acquired a majority holding in social media marketing agency We Are Social for $30m.[5][6][7][8]
Since 2014, BlueFocus has engaged in international expansion.[1] It acquired a majority holding in Fuseproject, a U.S. design agency, for $46.7 million in July 2014,[9] which 9 years later was bought back by Yves Béhar, the founder and CEO.[10] It also acquired a majority holding in the North American assets of Canadian advertising company Vision7 International, including Cossette, an ad agency, and Citizen Relation, a PR company, in December 2014 for $210 million.[11]
By 2014, it was listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange with a market capitalisation of $3.8 billion,[2] and was ranked as the 17th largest ad agency in the world.[1] As of 2015, its clients included PepsiCo, Lenovo, Volkswagen, and BMW.[12]
In 2017, it attempted to merge its international efforts with US-based Fluent, but eventually discontinued the effort over political concerns.[13] In 2019, it advanced into an arrangement whereby its international subsidiaries were partially divested into a separate company Blue Impact, which was to be purchased by a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Legacy Acquisition led by ex-Procter & Gamble executives Edwin Rigaud and Darryl McCall to publicly list in the United States.[13][14] This arrangement was terminated in July 2020 "in response to the increasing impact on the global advertising sector, and global markets broadly, resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, which has negatively affected the market valuations."[15]
In 2021, BlueFocus sold a majority stake of its international division to the Québec-based global investment group Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) and global private equity firm CVC Capital Partners.[16][17][18][19][20][21] Later that year the companies in its international division were grouped under the holding company brand name Plus Company.[22]
References
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