Could you briefly tell us about your company's history? Which generation of the family are you part of?
LLYC (Llorente y Cuenca) is a global communications, digital marketing, and public affairs consulting firm of which I am a founding partner; my family was not involved in its founding. We started out in Spain in 1995 and quickly began expanding across Latin America, an expansion that later extended to the United States. Today we have our own offices in 12 countries and a team of more than 900 professionals who are experts in different areas of specialization. Our company is committed to having the best professionals in the industry, who can go on to become partners in the firm through their effort and talent.
What led you to see the need for, or the strategic potential of, an acquisition?
Given the fast-moving, constantly changing world we live in, and as our position as leaders in the industry has strengthened, we felt it was important to be able to offer our clients solutions to the new needs they face and to broaden our capabilities and expertise. We also wanted to strengthen our presence in different regions.
What factors helped you decide which companies were most attractive for your growth strategy?
Our acquisition policy gives priority to companies that allow us to strengthen our capabilities, with a clear focus on creativity and technology, as well as our presence in certain markets. In the coming years, we're going to place a special focus on countries such as the U.S. and Brazil.
List what was most important to you when evaluating a target company to acquire
When acquiring a company, and staying true to our commitment to talent, we look for the best professionals in their field. Other factors we take into account are that they are companies with high growth rates, profitable, and with a strong technology component.
Describe the main advantages of buying and integrating other companies compared with growing organically
Our acquisition strategy allows us to grow faster and better than if we grew only organically, strengthening our capabilities and scope of activity. We want to double the size of our business over the next 5 years with organic growth of only 8%. To date, this acquisition strategy has been very beneficial in helping us broaden our capabilities and grow faster. The most recent ones, in 2021, were the acquisitions of Apache (Spain) and BESO (Mexico) to expand our Deep Digital Business services, as well as a majority stake in CHINA (Spain) to strengthen our commitment to creativity.
