After scouring the marketplace for potential deal alternatives, Gersh is able to take a giant swing.
The Beverly Hills-based agency mentioned Tuesday it’s buying Madrid-based sports activities and leisure company You First in a significant foray to determine a foothold within the profitable professional athlete house.
As a part of the deal to purchase the Juan Aísa-led illustration and consulting agency, Gersh will double its worker headcount to round 600 staffers because it bolts on an company that already operates in 13 nations and touts a shopper roster of round 1,000. The newly titled division, Gersh Sports activities, shall be led by Steve Gersh, the grandson of the company’s founder, Phil Gersh, whereas Aísa will be part of the board.
In launching a sports activities division, Gersh is taking direct purpose at a sector of the illustration panorama led by the Large 3 businesses in Hollywood (CAA, WME and UTA) and administration agency Wasserman, which have established items and enormous rosters of professional athletes.
“Sports activities illustration is a pure subsequent step in our development as we proceed to evolve the company,” mentioned Steve Gersh, a managing accomplice on the agency. “In buying You First, our strategic ambitions had been to discover a accomplice with world scale, a diversified and multi-sport observe, and powerful administration.”
You First, which was based in 2002, touts its concentrate on soccer and basketball stars and its shopper roster contains Fabián Ruiz, Alexia Putellas, Milos Kerkez, Christoph Baumgartner and Luis de la Fuente together with Desmond Bane, Jarrett Allen, Jeremy Sochan, Ray Allen and Vince Carter. The agency has additionally labored on advertising and marketing campaigns with shoppers together with Formulation 1, Wrexham FC, Samsung and Starbucks.
“The partnership with Gersh strengthens our place within the trade and permits us to supply even higher assist to our shoppers,” added Aísa.
The acquisition marks the second important purchase that Gersh — led by co-presidents Bob Gersh, David Gersh and Leslie Siebert — has made because it bought a forty five p.c stake to funding agency Crestview Companions in 2023 with an eye fixed to speed up its enlargement by means of dealmaking. On the time, Gersh counted 300 staff and 125 brokers.
The Crestview funding marked the primary time Gersh took on an fairness accomplice since its founding in 1949. Early this yr, the company picked up about 45 staffers and 25 brokers in a deal to purchase the digital and various departments of the embattled A3 Artists Company because the agency wound down and its founders turned embroiled in a lawsuit over sale talks to Gersh.
“As we proceed to develop the company, our focus is to broaden the observe into new areas of illustration, and rising the core enterprise, whereas constructing an ecosystem by which shoppers throughout all divisions can immediately profit from this enhanced functionality,” mentioned Steve Stanford, head of technique for Gersh. “Gersh has at all times crammed a novel house within the illustration panorama, and we wish to develop the enterprise in methods that don’t come on the expense of what it does finest: concentrate on people and their ambitions.”