Dentsu Aegis Network acquires majority stake in Milestone Brandcom

Dentsu Aegis Network has acquired 51 per cent stake in leading OOH specialist agency Milestone Brandcom. With the acquisition of Milestone Brandcom, combined with Posterscope – Dentsu Aegis Network’s global outdoor media agency – Dentsu Aegis Network becomes the leading centre of excellence within India’s OOH market in terms of quality and volume.   
 
Founded in October 2009 and led by Founder and Managing Director Nabendu Bhattacharyya, Milestone Brandcom is one of the fastest growing integrated outdoor media agencies in the country and India’s largest OOH company based on billings. The 175 strong team of specialists at Milestone Brandcom has more than 100 active clients across a wide range of industries, and provides full-service comprehensive OOH offerings that includes an event promotion activation division, rural OOH activation, and retail and digital OOH divisions.

It may be recalled that Milestone Brandcom had recently launched the’Milestone Optimizer’, a powerful tool that optimises OOH media plans by tracking 25,000 sites across India and providing Gross Impression Points of an OOH campaign, a first in India.

Ashish Bhasin, Chairman and CEO of Dentsu Aegis Network South Asia said, “Milestone Brandcom is not only a market leader but also a pioneer of several developments in the OOH industry in India. Posterscope was already amongst India’s fastest growing brands. This investment now establishes clear leadership for us in this very important medium, making us the leader in the OOH and OOH retail space in India. We believe that OOH will play an increasingly important role for clients in years to come so we are delighted to be able to offer clients a market leading service.
 
Nabendu Bhattacharyya, CEO and Managing Director of Milestone Brandcom, said, “We are thrilled to join hands with the Dentsu Aegis Network and my entire team and I are looking forward to taking Milestone Brandcom to even greater heights. Being a part of a dynamic global group like Dentsu Aegis Network will help us become stronger together. OOH will become more and more important in India and we are confident that as market leaders we will be at the forefront of this progress.

Dentsu Aegis Network will take a majority share in Milestone Brandcom. The company will retain its identity, branding and culture and share its knowledge in creative and OOH planning with the group.
 
Nabendu Bhattacharyya will continue as CEO and Managing Director of Milestone Brandcom, reporting to Ashish Bhasin, Chairman and CEO of Dentsu Aegis Network South Asia.
 
Nick Waters, CEO of Dentsu Aegis Network Asia Pacific, said, “Milestone Brandcom is a highly awarded and well respected agency in India. This acquisition marks another significant step as we build a high quality and scaled group in India.  We welcome Nabendu and the team to the company.