Acquisitions
Digital Marketing Agency – Regroup Media is Acquired by C. Melchers GmbH & Co. KG

London-based Digital Marketing Agency Regroup Media has been acquired by the German based China-Trading specialist C. Melchers GmbH & Co. KG (Melchers).
Regroup Media, (https://www.regroup-media.co.uk, https://www.regroup-china.com/) founded in 2011, provides digital marketing services for businesses both in the consumer and business sectors looking to expand their markets online.
Regroup has a unique offering; providing digital solutions both for Western markets, via channels such as Google, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, as well as having a dedicated division for brands wishing to enter the China market, via channels such as WeChat, Weibo, Baidu, JD and Tmall.
Regroup has become a leading force for Western-brands looking to reach China, the World’s biggest online market, servicing a wide and rapidly growing client-base in the luxury retail, high street retail, education, property and B2B space.
The services provided by Regroup include WeChat and Weibo management, being one of the first UK agencies to develop WeChat mini-programs; the applications within WeChat’s eco-system that enables brands to develop e-commerce, gaming, and geo-location driven services. Regroup has developed mini programs for clients such as The British House and Bremont.
Regroup also provides a consultancy service for China, and a development capability for brands wishing to establish a web presence there.
Melchers is a German headquartered company with more than 50 subsidiaries in Germany and overseas with a strong focus on Asia. Having been involved in China for over 150 years, this is now their key market with more than 450 people employed there.
Melchers provide a full support service for businesses wishing to expand their markets in Asia and specifically China, including sales and marketing, back-office, retail and sourcing as well as for consulting in market expansion and cross border M&A transactions.
The acquisition is perfectly timed as interest in the West continues to grow to reach this ever-expanding marketplace. China has one fifth of the World’s web users, and accounts for 40% of online transactions, yet with only half the population online, there is clearly a significant growth potential going forward.
More and more Western brands are establishing themselves in China.
Scott Muir, MD and Founder of Regroup stated, “The partnership with Melchers makes perfect sense for Regroup. We are focusing on our China operation, to help more Western brands develop a strategy to reach this ever-growing market. We already have offices in Shanghai and Guangzhou, Melchers have been operating in China for over 150 years and have an unrivalled infrastructure and network there, which will ultimately help us grow further in China.”
Dirk Saenger, Managing Partner of Melchers stated that, “Melchers has the infrastructure and legal set up in China to offer market expansion services to its partners, including the physical handling of goods being for buying or selling in the China market. With the digital marketing know-how Regroup will add to the services offered, Melchers will extend its reach and services on offer for its partners even further”.
SOURCE Regroup Media
Acquisitions
Qloo, the Leading Artificial Intelligence Platform for Culture and Taste, Acquires TasteDive

Qloo, the leading artificial intelligence platform for culture and taste, has acquired TasteDive, a cultural recommendation engine and social community that helps consumers seamlessly discover new things to watch, read, listen to, and play based on their unique preferences. By joining Qloo, TasteDive will be able to better serve consumers through a deeper catalogue and intelligence, as well as expand into new categories like podcasts and dining. Qloo will benefit from expanded global reach and from TasteDive’s API ecosystem which further powers taste personalization.
“Consumer tastes are increasingly fragmented as there’s more to watch, read, listen to and buy than ever, and more ways to do it – people are overwhelmed by choice. TasteDive is the most elegant solution I’ve seen for navigating all that choice and getting truly great recommendations,” said Alex Elias, Founder and CEO of Qloo. “TasteDive does for millions of individuals what Qloo has been doing for brands for years – using AI to make better decisions about culture and taste.”
TasteDive helps consumers discover their taste across broad categories of entertainment choices by identifying, matching and making personalized recommendations based on their interests across authors, books, games, music, movies, TV shows and podcasts. Users get on-spot recommendations based on what they like, while registered users are provided with additional features, such as sharing a taste profile, receiving personalized recommendations, and taking part in a global community of like-minded users who can exchange opinions on their favorite items and follow other users’ activities.
More than 4.5 million users around the world are actively curating their tastes using TasteDive. More than 6.8 billion recommendations on culture and taste have been provided since the company’s founding.
“Our community is growing quickly, and we want to bring our global base the most accurate predictions and strongest network to help them discover and engage,” said Andrei Oghina, co-founder of TasteDive. “We could not think of a better fit to help us deliver on this mission than Qloo. Qloo’s longstanding commitment to privacy-by-design personalization and the fact that their API is completely anonymized and encrypted were attractive selling points for us as privacy is paramount for our users.”
Qloo provides brands with cultural artificial intelligence delivered through a high performance, privacy-centric platform, allowing them to make more informed predictions about what their customers’ tastes might be and how their tastes correlate across over a dozen major categories, including music, film, television, podcasts, dining, nightlife, fashion, consumer products, books and travel. Qloo helps brands solve real-world problems such as driving sales, saving money on media buys, choosing locations and building brands. Its AI platform is the market leader in providing completely anonymized and encrypted consumer taste data and recommendations for leading companies in the tech, entertainment, publishing, retail, travel, hospitality and CPG sectors. Additionally, Qloo serves developers by integrating its API into a wide range of apps to make them smarter. Clients include BMW, Tablet Hotels, IAC, Equinox, Penguin Random House, Campbell’s Soup, Cross Creek Pictures, Samsung and Swarovski.
The acquisition will keep the founding TasteDive team in place, maintaining a deep commitment to the TasteDive community and platform. Andrei Oghina, Founder of TasteDive, will remain as Chief Executive Officer and Alex Elias will serve as Chairman. Other terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
To experience TasteDive on the web, please go to www.tastedive.com.
To learn more about what Qloo can do for marketers, please go to www.qloo.com.
SOURCE Qloo
Acquisitions
IHG® Welcomes Six Senses Hotels Resorts Spas to its Family of Brands

IHG® (InterContinental Hotels Group), one of the world’s leading hotel companies, has welcomed a new family member to its portfolio of brands, with the acquisition of Six Senses Hotels Resorts Spas.
Six Senses is renowned for its focus on wellness and sustainability, with each hotel and resort set in locations of incredible natural beauty that will stop you in your tracks, delivering an uncompromising level of service that will stay with you long after you’ve left. All of which has been recognized through a host of industry awards and accolades* including Travel+Leisure (World Best Award, Top Hotel Brand for two years in a row), TIME Magazine, Conde Nast Traveler and Skift to name a few.
Featuring properties in 12 countries, Six Senses is behind some of the world’s most enticing hotels, resorts and spas, including: a 19th-century wine estate in the Douro Valley (Portugal), breathtaking island resorts in the Seychelles and Maldives, beach-side retreats in Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and Oman, a city escape in Singapore, and residences in the mountains of Courchevel (France).
Six Senses joins a growing number of luxury brands in the IHG family, including:
- InterContinental® Hotels & Resorts, the world’s largest luxury hotel brand, which recently celebrated the opening of its 200th hotel and was named World’s Leading Hotel Brand title for the 12th time at the World Travel Awards (WTA). This is a brand dedicated to those who appreciate and enjoy The InterContinental Life – the glamour and exhilaration of fascinating places, mixed with international know-how and local cultural wisdom.
- Regent® Hotels & Resorts, also recently acquired and now undergoing a repositioning which celebrates the brand’s deep luxury heritage and revered legacy. Born in 1970, this collection of modern hotels and resorts is rooted in extraordinary living, with a legacy of luxury that endures to this day.
- Kimpton® Hotels & Restaurants, the industry pioneer that first introduced the boutique concept to the U.S. The brand is now set to open in 20 new global destinations including Mexico City, Paris, Barcelona, Bali and Shanghai, each of which will showcase bold, playful design, award-winning dining and surprising amenities to ensure guests have the ultimate boutique hotel stay.
Across IHG’s four leading luxury brands, guests can now enjoy nearly 300 luxury hotels around the world, with more than 100 set to open in the coming years.
As part of the IHG family, Six Senses is expected to expand to 60 properties within the next 10 years. This includes incredible new Six Senses hotels and resorts from a restored 14th-century fort in Rajasthan, to villas on a private island in Cambodia, and the brand’s first hotel in North America – a contemporary duo of twisting towers designed by Bjarke Ingles near the High Line in Manhattan’s West Chelsea.
IHG’s Chief Executive Officer, Keith Barr, said: “IHG’s growing portfolio of luxury brands is a collection of the very best in the travel industry. Each one offers something unique to our guests, and together they offer an unparalleled choice of locations and experiences. We’re incredibly proud to welcome Six Senses into our family of brands and look forward to opening more stunning hotels, resorts and spas – each one staying true to Six Senses’ world-renowned reputation for wellness and an unwavering commitment to purposeful travel.”
Core to every Six Senses hotel and resort is a Six Senses Spa, where guests can relax, reconnect, and completely refresh. Guests are guided on a personal path to finding harmony and balance, to ensure positive and lasting benefits. Unique to the hospitality sector, Six Senses has also taken wellness out of the spa and integrated it across the entire stay, helping guests learn something new and reconnect with themselves, others, and the world around them.
“This is an exciting new era for Six Senses,” said Six Senses Chief Executive Officer, Neil Jacobs. “IHG believes in our purpose to merge the two platforms of wellness and sustainability to promote personal health, and the health of the planet. Joining forces with IHG means we can use a wealth of systems and operational excellence to grow our brand and reach new markets without losing our quirky personality and playful touch.”
In the near future guests will be able to book their Six Senses stay through IHG’s booking platforms, such as the ihg.com website and the company’s leading mobile app, and benefit from the advantages of the IHG® Rewards Club loyalty programme.
With 15 of the world’s leading hotel brands and more than 5,500 hotels around the world, IHG offers travelers and members of its global loyalty programme IHG® Rewards Club, a hotel stay for all travel occasions.
SOURCE IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group)
Acquisitions
Weekend Unlimited Signs Definitive Agreement With R&D Pharma for Jamaican Interests

Weekend Unlimited Inc. (“Weekend” or the “Company”) (CSE: POT) (FSE: 0OS1) (OTCMKTS: WKULF) having announced a Letter of Intent on 1 November 2018 to acquire R&D Pharma’s Jamaican interests, has now entered into a definitive agreement with R&D Pharma, which is anticipated to close next week.
R&D Pharma (“RDP”) is a Canadian company building a vertically integrated medical cannabis business in Jamaica. RDP has secured a Tier-3 Cultivator’s License, which allows for full cultivation of cannabis plants on land of over 5 acres, which in this case applies to the 98-acre RDP property.
R&D Pharma Highlights include:
- Approved Tier-3 cultivators license
- Medical tourism in Jamaica, plus phenotyping with Jamaican sativas, to brand and export internationally recognized strains, extracts, and infused products
- Will be a significant exporter of branded full spectrum extracts as well as extracted cannabinoids from one of world’s lowest cost geographies for growing cannabis
“Upon signing this deal, we are excited to accelerate operations in Jamaica. There has been tremendous work accomplished on the property by the team on the ground and the cultivation results have been impressive in both quality and economically,” noted Mr. Paul Chu, Weekend Unlimited President and CEO.
SOURCE Weekend Unlimited Inc.
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