Right here’s some M&A on your Tuesday: Gersh has acquired You First, a number one world sports activities and leisure company.
With the acquisition, Gersh doubles its measurement to over 600 staff, establishes a worldwide footprint with 22 places of work in 14 nations, and positions itself as a participant in worldwide sports activities illustration. The purpose can be to create new alternatives for purchasers throughout each sports activities and leisure, constructing on the strengths of every group. You First CEO and co-Founder, Juan Aísa, joins the board of Gersh and can proceed to run his firm from its headquarters in Madrid, Spain.
You First reps over 1,000 purchasers globally throughout a number of sports activities, with a robust presence in soccer and basketball. Notables on the roster embrace Fabián Ruiz, Alexia Putellas, Milos Kerkez, Christoph Baumgartner, and Luis de la Fuente, to call only a few. Moreover, the company’s U.S. basketball division, Tandem, reps present and former NBA stars together with Desmond Bane, Jarrett Allen, Jeremy Sochan, Ray Allen, and Vince Carter.
Past repping world sporting expertise lively each on and off the sphere, You First works intently with sports activities leagues and companies — akin to Components 1, Wrexham FC, Samsung and Starbucks — to forge data-driven advertising and marketing campaigns that empower manufacturers to attach with followers by way of sports activities, leisure, social platforms and dwell occasions.
The You First acquisition gives Gersh with a sturdy platform to broaden into sports activities illustration and consulting. With the launch of its new sports activities division, Gersh Sports activities, the company will proceed its enlargement into new client-serving companies, which it started earlier this 12 months with the acquisition of the A3 Company’s Digital and Various departments. Led by managing companion Steve Gersh, Gersh Sports activities will unify the company’s sports activities initiatives and drive collaboration throughout its leisure and sports activities divisions.
Mentioned Steve Gersh on the acquisition, “Sports activities illustration is a pure subsequent step in our progress as we proceed to evolve the company. In buying You First, our strategic ambitions have been to discover a companion with world scale, a diversified and multi-sport observe, and powerful administration. Juan and the You First group carry all these attributes, and an ethos of steadfast client-centric advocacy that’s core to Gersh’s illustration practices.”
Said You First’s CEO, Aísa, “The partnership with Gersh strengthens our place within the trade and permits us to supply even better assist to our purchasers. Collectively, we’re constructing an ecosystem that goes past sports activities and leisure illustration to foster innovation and create new alternatives for world enlargement.”
Steve Stanford, head of technique for Gersh, added that “Gersh has all the time crammed a novel house within the illustration panorama, and we need to develop the enterprise in methods that don’t come on the expense of what it does finest: deal with people and their ambitions.”