SHELTON, Conn., March 16, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- SSI has entered into a definitive agreement to purchase the majority of assets of MRops, an industry-leading provider of end-to-end market research operations services to management consulting firms and market research agencies. With this acquisition, SSI strengthens its leadership position as a global data solutions and technology company by significantly expanding its operational and delivery capability, substantially adding to an already fast-growth global B2B business and deepening its expertise in management consulting and healthcare.
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"Adding a high growth business with such exceptional operational capability and talent is a very strong fit with SSI," said SSI President and CEO Chris Fanning. "Ian and the MRops team have built an outstanding business, especially in the B2B space, which is very synergistic with SSI's rapidly expanding B2B offering. MRops' passionate focus on the consulting and healthcare markets is also very well aligned with our strategic direction."
Founded in January 2007, MRops specializes in business-to-business research, executive interviewing, statistical services and sampling solutions. The company has approximately 200 employees across offices in North America, Asia and Europe. SSI's acquisition of MRops will also expand SSI's leadership footprint in the Asia Pacific region with the addition of an operations hub in Hyderabad, India.
"SSI has the industry leading technology and global panel, and organizational strength that will enable our existing business to grow more rapidly once MRops has fully integrated with SSI," said MRops CEO Ian Kiernan. "We've built the teams and processes to support very complex work - from targeting hard to reach audiences, to validating survey quality and completions, to developing respondent engagement solutions – and our consulting and healthcare clientele will be much better served with this powerful combination. MRops' full service expertise, combined with SSI's panel size, global scope and integrated technology platform, creates a very attractive value proposition to customers worldwide."
Kiernan will join the SSI Global Executive Team as Senior Vice President, Global Operations and report to SSI President & CEO, Chris Fanning. In discussing the operations of the acquisition, Fanning stated, "We anticipate a very rapid and smooth integration of MRops into SSI. Clients of both entities will see a single, expanded SSI going forward with no disruption in service and, we believe, greater immediate value from the combined company."
The deal is expected to close in first quarter of 2015. New York-based mergers & acquisitions firm, AdMedia Partners (www.admediapartners.com), acted as exclusive financial advisor to MRops in the transaction.
The majority owner of SSI is HGGC, a leading middle market private equity firm, who completed their majority investment transaction in December, 2014.
About SSI
SSI is the premier global provider of data solutions and technology for consumer and business-to-business survey research, reaching respondents in 100+ countries via Internet, telephone, mobile/wireless and mixed-access offerings. SSI staff operates from 30 offices in 21 countries, offering sample, data collection, CATI, questionnaire design consultation, programming and hosting, online custom reporting and data processing. SSI's 3,600 employees serve more than 2,500 clients worldwide. Visit SSI at www.surveysampling.com.
About AdMedia Partners
Founded in 1990, AdMedia is a leading M&A advisory firm serving the marketing services, advertising, marketing technology, media and information sectors. AdMedia has completed over 190 transactions for clients valued in excess of $9 billion since 1999. For more information, visit www.admediapartners.com
About HGGC
Based in Palo Alto, California, HGGC is a leading private equity firm focusing on leveraged buyout, recapitalizations and growth equity transactions in the middle market. HGGC seeks to partner with strong management teams, founders and sponsors to build companies capable of generating sustainable growth. With years of collective deal and operational experience, HGGC brings best practices from private equity and global corporations to help middle market businesses in a wide range of industries outperform the market. More information is available at www.hggc.com.
