Equifax Inc., represented by Kilpatrick Stockton partner Gregory K. Cinnamon, has agreed to sell its Direct Marketing Services division to Alliance Data Systems for $117 million.
The all-cash transaction, which Cinnamon said took between 45 and 60 days to put together from a legal standpoint, is expected to close around the beginning of July.
“Equifax engaged a banker, Wells Fargo, and we ran an auction process for the transaction,” said Cinnamon, who has represented Equifax since 1995. He said Equifax’s general counsel, Kent Mast, along with the company’s corporate and technology counsel, Jeffrey R. Thorpe, were integral in putting the deal together, as were some Equifax corporate development people. “They had a number of interested parties submit bids.”
Alliance Data, whose in-house attorneys, led by Jeanette Fitzgerald, handled this deal, submitted the winning bid. The Dallas, Texas-based company plans to integrate the about 200 employees it gets from Equifax into its Epsilon Targeting and Marketing Technology groups.
“This was an asset transaction, where [Equifax was] divesting their direct marketing relationship businesses that had been integrated over the years, so pulling that apart was probably the most complex part of the deal,” Cinnamon said. “For Equifax, it was no longer core to their differentiated data business, and for Alliance Data’s business, this was right down the middle of the fairway of what they do.”