Fifth Ring acquires Like Minds Consulting; looking to expand in APAC

Fifth Ring specialises in Business-2-Business (B2B) communications, particularly in the energy sector.

It also provides a portfolio of marketing services to a broad set of clients, with offices in Aberdeen, Houston, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Kuala Lumpur.

The company’s new office in Singapore highlights the increasing development opportunities across its key market sectors of energy, construction, property, education and financial services.

Fifth Ring will also be taking its integrated communications offering, including business positioning, public relations, advertising, creative, digital media and marketing, to Singapore.

Clif Collier, group managing director at Fifth Ring, said that with its history of supporting its clients across European, North American and Middle East markets, its office in Singapore and other countries going forward will be able to support clients’ strategic expansion and consolidation in APAC markets.

Ian Ord, business development director at Fifth Ring, added that while it has managed projects in Singapore, it recognises that having a local presence is a prerequisite to grow.

“This acquisition will help support our philosophy of a global strategy being supported by local delivery, language and cultural understanding,” he said. “The move demonstrates our active approach to fully internationalise Fifth Ring—a vision we set out in 2004—by securing offices across the energy centres of the world. We constantly seek to raise the bar to an entirely new level.”

Fifth Ring’s new office in Singapore is led by Himanshu Verma, who takes on the role of the company’s APAC managing director. He has more than 21 years of public relations, public affairs and marketing communications experience, and was previously head of marketing and PR of ESPN STAR Sports prior to founding Like Minds Consulting.

He also worked in leadership roles with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) as well as PR agencies such as Text 100 and IPAN Hill+Knowlton Strategies.

“There are mature clients in the APAC region with a need for highly refined and targeted communications campaigns,” Verma said. “These companies are currently being catered for by generalist B2C agencies who are managing by overlaying universal marketing communications rules. This is where we will be able to add substantial value – by applying processes to identifying a brand issues and creating a tailor-made communications strategy.”