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Purchase furthers CAA Sports’ global growth

CAA Sports has acquired Munich-based sports and entertainment brand consulting firm Cemano Communication, which counts the Coca-Cola Co. and Allianz among its clients.

Financial details were not disclosed. The acquisition of Cemano Communication, which will be rebranded CAA Sports Consulting Germany, is the seventh acquisition in 12 months and the 11th in the last 24 months by CAA.

All 25 of Cemano Communication’s employees will join CAA Sports and will work out of a new office that CAA is opening in Munich later this year. With this acquisition, CAA Sports now has more than 325 people managing over $2.5 billion in sponsorship deals for more than 30 corporate brands, said Greg Luckman, global head of CAA Sports Consulting.

Cemano founders Dominicus Doriat and Marc Socher with CAA Sports executives Greg Luckman and Marco Kaussler
Photo by: CAA SPORTS
Cemano provides clients, which also include auto brand Mini, consumer brands company Henkel, German energy company E.ON, and German Free TV, with a variety of consulting services from brand activation strategy to engagement, as well as event management, digital and social media, and branded entertainment.

The deal follows CAA Sports’ acquisition of London-based corporate consulting and experiential marketing business Brandrapport in January.

“We clearly have an ambitious growth plan for CAA Sports Consulting, and international is a major part of that,” Luckman said last week. “In addition to the investment we have made in the U.K., building upon our presence in Germany was critical. When we assess agencies, work product and financials are important, but our three top priorities are cultural fit, cultural fit and cultural fit.”

Cemano Communication was founded in 2007 by Marc Socher and Dominicus Doriat. Socher and Doriat have each joined the company as co-head of CAA Sports Consulting Germany. Both will report to Luckman.

“It was evident in our first meeting that CAA and Cemano have shared values,” Luckman said.

CAA acquired Munich-based golf consultancy PGM, now CAA Golf, in February 2014. PGM founder Marco Kaussler, who joined CAA Sports as a golf executive, met Socher and Doriat when the two companies both had clients supporting Germany’s bid to host the Ryder Cup.

He introduced Luckman to the Cemano executives, and they began talking about a possible business combination about a year ago. “We had not actively been looking to sell,” Doriat said.

Among several reasons that Cemano decided to sell to CAA Sports, Doriat said, was the company’s reputation. Also, their brand clients increasingly wanted more capabilities and more global reach, and the brand consulting business is going through a period of mergers and acquisitions.

“There has been a lot of consolidation in the German market,” Doriat said. “Either you are very small or you become a bigger agency.”

Socher said that before agreeing to sell the company, they met with CAA Sports executives in London, New York and Los Angeles and were impressed. The corporate consulting business “is a people business,” Socher said, adding that they thought they could work well with CAA executives.

“We sat together and thought about, ‘How can we, as an agency, improve, and what do our clients want?’” Socher said. “And the clients want the best they can get. So, this means for us not only an international setup as an agency, but, of course, access to the best knowledge in our world of sports and entertainment.”

Although the deal is officially being announced today, Socher and Doriat have been working with CAA executives.

For CAA, this is the third international acquisition and the eighth acquisition of a company that helps corporations with their brand marketing.

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