Global digital corporate communications agency Investis has acquired UK rival Global3Digital for an undisclosed sum.

The purchase is Investis’ first since it acquired Hemscott, the investor relations arm of US financial services firm Morningstar, coinciding with its private equity financed management buyout two years ago. According to Investis CEO Helen James it was the successful integration of Hemscott that helped with the decision to expand further, “We felt very confident after the integration of Hemscott. It went really well, and we feel we’ve now got the capacity to [expand further]. We’ve long admired Global3Digital and we’re delighted to welcome their clients to Investis.”

The acquisition is the latest in a year of consolidation in the sector. Last year WPP bought independent agency The Group, merging it with their own corporate reporting firm Addison Design. Further M&A activity occurred last week, when Emperor, a London based corporate communications agency took over the corporate reporting division of FTI Consulting. James thinks there may be more to follow, “I think there’s more consolidation to come. Certainly in the world of digital corporate communications the technology required, the security required, the 24/7 service required mean that it’s quite hard to compete on a small scale. Clients get a real advantage with agencies that can do it on a industrial scale. I think there will be more opportunities if that trend continues.

Global3Digital employed approximately 30 staff, including freelance contractors. Investis wouldn’t comment as to whether there would be an redundancies, but James was hopeful it would be able to bring as much staff as possible into Investis, adding, “The areas where we always really admired them were their client services, and we’ll work very hard with them to maintain and hopefully improve that area even further.” Investis manages its technology and support services through its offices in India, where it employs 250 staff.

In November of last year, Investis appointed David Grigson (chair of TrinityMirror and Creston plc) to the role of chairman, to support its US expansion plans. This appears to have been successful, with Investis now claiming over 80 US clients. According to James, Investis has no other obvious acquisitions in its sights,  “We feel we’ve got a terrific opportunity for growth without any further acquisitions. We’ve got the exciting opportunities coming from the US, our EU business is going really well, and we have a strong pipeline of product development. We don’t need to do any acquisitions in order to grow the company. But having said that if a good opportunity arises we’d be interested.”