Transactis bought by print and mail house CDMS

by Noelle McElhatton, Marketing Direct 13-Jan-09, 13:46

LONDON - Transactional data supplier Transactis has been acquired by marketing services group CDMS, the second acquisition of a data company by a printer in as many months. Ai Data Intelligence was bought by print group Communisis in December.

Primarily known as a print and mailing house, CDMS is a sister company to the UK's biggest home shopping group, Shop Direct.

CDMS claims a turnover of over £70 million, handling 1.5% of all UK mail and 7% of B2C direct mail. It already provides database services and with the Transactis acquisition, becomes a data owner too.

Transactis launched in 2004 to take advantage of the growing popularity of data pooling amongst mail order companies and charities. It was founded by Chris Morris, a former MD of data pooler Abacus Direct Europe, who remains the managing director of Transactis along with current commercial director Tony Lawes. Both have signed new three-year contracts.

The company will continue to operate under the same name, operating out of its existing offices in Richmond upon Thames.

Morris says: "The tie up with CDMS allows us to extend those services to offer our members and clients a complete targeting, digital printing and delivery service plus highly targeted digital campaigns at very competitive prices. We think that's what the market wants right now."

He added that Shop Direct is considering joining the Transactics data pool. "We've started those discussions," Morris said."CDMS also does catalogue printing and we can our now offer that service to our mail order partners. Together with CDMS we are capable of pitching for much bigger, multi-channel business."

CDMS chief executive Stephen Clark said: "The ability to offer a truly end to end proposition in direct marketing services is an exciting proposition to be involved in."