Creston gets REAL (CRE)

I have a modest holding bought cheaply and intending to hold for a while as they start their new adventure ..........


K

At an Extraordinary General Meeting today, the shareholders of Creston PLC voted in favour of an Ordinary Resolution for the acquisition of the entire share capital of The Real Adventure Marketing Communications Limited for a maximum total consideration of approximately #7.3 million.

The Real Adventure is an independent marketing services company, founded in September 1991. It has sought to provide a comprehensive range of creative and marketing disciplines for clients including brand development, direct mail campaigns, eMarketing, customer relationship and database management, incentive schemes and advertising and design. Amongst The Real Adventure's most notable clients are Black Horse Personal Finance, Cow and Gate, London Dungeons, Lloyds TSB Autolease, and Nutricia. Typically The Real Adventure's clients operate in the financial services, food and leisure sectors.

Creston's objective is to achieve rapid growth through the acquisition of high quality niche businesses which individually lack the infrastructure or resources to maximise their potential. These businesses will offer services such as market research, direct marketing, customer relationship marketing and telemarketing. The acquisition of The Real Adventure is the second major step in this "buy-and-build" strategy.

Don Elgie, Creston's Chief Executive, said: "I am delighted that Real Adventure is joining Creston. It has been a consistently profitable business, working with many blue-chip clients, but I believe that it can grow much faster as part of the Creston group. This is exactly what we were looking for in an acquisition."