London agency CSM has its sights set on growing in North America and the recent acquisition of JHE Productions is one of its first major steps in creating a foothold in the U.S. CSM, the sports marketing and entertainment division of Chime Communications, last week signed off on its purchase of JHE, an event production company based near Charlotte that has built its business around motorsports. Financial terms were not released. CSM CEO Zak Brown called the JHE acquisition an important complementary piece to the motorsports marketing that CSM already does in NASCAR, IndyCar and Formula 1 racing around the globe. "This puts us in a place in motorsports where we were not," Brown said, referring to event production. "They’ve got great clients, big broadcasters and a range of abilities that add to what we already do." JHE Founder Jay Howard said that this was the first time he had entered deep acquisition talks in the company’s history. JHE will maintain its name and Howard will continue to run the business, which has four primary services: special events, corporate meetings, live shows and experiential marketing.
