LDC's Fishawack buys Healthcircle Advertising

Greg Gille
13 July 2018

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Fishawack, a pharmaceutical media agency backed by LDC, has acquired Healthcircle Advertising, a brand communications agency with offices in London and Portugal.

Established in 2001 and headquartered in Knutsford, Cheshire, Fishawack is a pharmaceutical media agency. Its clients include GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi and Novartis.

Fishawack stated the acquisition would help build a global strategic creative agency that can work alongside its medical communications business. The deal follows the acquisition of US-based Carling Communications in July 2017; Fishawack stated that the Healthcircle bolt-on will help Carling reach critical mass in Europe, while Healthcircle will now have a US partner.

It is unclear at this stage whether LDC injected any fresh equity to finance the bolt-on. The GP backed the tertiary buyout of the pharmaceutical media agency Fishawack from Growth Capital Partners in early 2017, in a deal valuing the business at £38m. LDC acquired a majority stake and invested fresh capital in order to support the company's ongoing international acquisitive growth strategy.

Under the vendor's tenure, the business had already made a number of acquisitions, including the bolt-ons of Switzerland-based Archimed Medical Communications for £6m in June 2013, US-based JK Associates in March 2014 and UK-based Facilitate in July 2014.

Company
Founded in 2008, Healthcircle is a strategic brand communications agency with offices in London and Portugal.

People
Fishawack – Oliver Dennis (CEO).