White Image, the largest company in the email marketing sector in Romania, has been taken over 75% by Mediapost Hit Mail, the largest direct marketing group in Romania and Bulgaria, controlled by La Poste – the French state postal service. A quarter of the company will be owned by the founders of White Image, Grațiela Lupu and Andrei Georgescu, who will continue to be the administrators of the company.
La Poste Group, with a turnover of 35 billion euros in 2022, is the largest operator of postal services in France, founded in 1477 by Louis XI of France for the transport of royal messages, and is present in 63 countries.
Mediapost Hit Mail’s takeover of White Image is part of the French group’s plan to diversify its portfolio of email marketing and CRM solutions and coincides with White Image’s desire to expand into foreign markets.
“White Image will bring value to the Mediapost Hit Mail group, through advanced solutions and complete email marketing services. We have been following them for a long time and admire what White Image has managed to achieve in the local market since its establishment, and we believe that there is a lot of room for development for them, both in Romania and abroad. White Image is our third acquisition (two companies in Romania and one in Bulgaria) and we will not stop here”, says Marian Şeitan, the general director of Mediapost Hit Mail and the founder, 26 years ago, of Hit Mail company.
“We are happy to announce this solid partnership with Mediapost Hit Mail, which represents an important opportunity to grow White Image, offering customers new services for the development of their businesses. Mediapost Hit Mail owns call centre/contact centre solutions, database management and processing, and geographic data, all extremely valuable in data integration, which can improve the relevance of email marketing campaigns. We are confident that through this partnership we are accessing a new development potential”, says Grațiela Lupu, co-founder of White Image.
“We are delighted with the partnership with Mediapost Hit Mail, which opens the way to new performances and new markets for White Image. The company has grown steadily from year to year, holding an important share of the email marketing market. We have invested in the development of technologies for the efficient management of email marketing campaigns and we have a team of experts in the field, with the company prepared for new expansions abroad”, says Andrei Georgescu, co-founder of White Image.
White Image has a complete portfolio of email and SMS marketing services, database building, marketing and creative services, CRM solutions, technologies for managing email marketing campaigns, data integration, and integrations with company websites for automatic generation of email content.
In the transaction process, Mediapost Hit Mail was assisted by lawyers Bogdan Aldea and Anca Tomescu, by the Mazars Deal Advisory team and by Luisiana Dobrinescu and Andrada Pleș from Dobrinescu Dobrev Tax Advisory, while White Image was assisted by the law firm KPMG Legal – Toncescu & Asociații, the team being coordinated by Vlad Peligrad (Partner) and Dragoș Iamandoiu (Senior Managing Associate).
Founded in 2003, White Image is the first email marketing company in Romania, which has created a new market at the local level. White Image is the most awarded company in the Romanian email marketing market, accumulating 6 international awards at the Marketing Sherpa Awards, in the USA, the world’s most prestigious email marketing competition. White Image ended 2022 with a turnover of 1.3 million euros, with a team of 18 marketing specialists and hundreds of clients from Romania, Europe and Asia, from the automotive, banking, travel, retail, e-commerce, pharma, and other sectors.
The integrator of direct marketing services Mediapost Hit Mail SA, 100% owned by La Poste, has been present in the Romanian market for 26 years and in 2022 had a turnover of 57 million euros and over 500 employees, together with its 6 branches in Romania and 2 in Bulgaria. The company offers integrated logistics solutions for consumer promotions and e-commerce, solutions for loyalty clubs, as well as multi-channel communication solutions (SMS, WhatsApp, email, call center), marketing databases, geomarketing, marketing automation, and digital vouchers. The previous acquisition of Mediapost Hit Mail took place in September 2022, when the group took control of the Romanian agency Ideologiq.
