BlueFocus invests in Legacy, aiming for bigger global presence

Chinese marketing-services company BlueFocus Intelligent Communications Group (BFICG) announced on Friday an investment in US-based Legacy Acquisition Corp, which will be renamed Blue Impact Inc after the deal is completed.

“This deal will help BlueFocus build a valuable international publicly listed fund-raising platform," a BlueFocus statement said. "It will help attract scalable capital and the attention of US institutional investors, boosting BlueFocus’ fast growth under the strategy of internationalization and smart marketing."

Under the agreement, Legacy will purchase all of the shares of a wholly owned subsidiary of BFICG that at closing will control the Blue Impact business, with stakes at about 44.4%.

After the deal, Blue Impact will be led by BFICG’s international business team, with Brett Marchand as CEO and Holly Zheng as Chairwoman of the post-acquisition Blue Impact Board, according to a Legacy press release.

Marchand is currently the CEO of Vision7, a Canada-based marketing communications platform that will be 100% controlled by BFICG’s international business before the completion of Legacy deal. Before joining Vision 7 14 years ago, he worked as a marketer at Procter & Gamble, Campbell Soup and Molson Coors.

Holly Zheng is a board director of BFICG and the president of BFICG’s international business.

Headquartered in Mountain View, California, Blue Impact’s portfolio of assets consists of digital, media, social, creative and data analytic advertising and marketing assets and agencies that serve both global blue chip and digital-disruptor clients.According to BlueFocus’ financial results released on Thursday, its international business revenue increased 20.05% year-on-year to RMB1.46 billion (US$204 million) in the first half of 2019. Its business that targets Chinese companies going global soared a little more than 30% to RMB6.86 billion ($960 million), accounting for 58% of its total revenue.

“The communications landscape has never been more complex and Blue Impact’s nimble structure, broad array of digital capabilities and tight cross-company collaboration ideally position us to serve both our blue-chip client roster as well as the growing number of digital disruptors across almost every major industry,” Marchand said in the a release.

“We’ve developed several potentially disruptive growth initiatives, including Impact Campuses, serving major Chinese brands, and Marketing as a Service (MaaS) all of which will help the company to accelerate its growth for years to come,” he added.