Art & Commerce

Acquisition Outlook
Consolidation has been a major business theme in the marketing-services industry for most of the 1990s. Business is good, and the industry’s larger players are looking to augment their “organic” growth by making acquisitions. The smaller companies, those in the acquisition bait pool, are also doing well, but they find it increasingly difficult to compete with the multioffice, multiservice, multinational giants. The relatively modest cost of acquisition capital, whether measured by low interest rates or high stock-market valuations, has helped sustain the deal flow.