Calmon Partners acquires PR agency Influences: adding opinion communications to its services platform

Calmon Partners, the services platform for the financial sector

Founded in 2020 by Claude Calmon, the Calmon Partners group has built itself as a services platform dedicated to the investment sector, organised around three core, complementary activities: an executive search firm specialising in finance roles, fundraising support and press relations. Unlisted, headquartered in Paris with offices in London and Geneva, the group serves investment funds, banks, family offices and fintechs, and in 2021 added its own media outlet — Finyear.com, at the crossroads of traditional and decentralised finance. Its strategy, set out in the deal announcement, is to strengthen its position as a partner to companies, in France and internationally, in managing their image and communications — with the stated aim of reaching critical size within three to five years.

Influences, the opinion communications consultancy

Founded in 2006, Influences is an opinion communications consultancy whose recognised expertise also covers crisis communications and financial communications — the trusted third party that keeps information flowing smoothly between businesses and the media, with a multidisciplinary team of press relations consultants, community managers, strategic planners and copywriters. What sets it apart is its founder's background: the agency's positioning is the fruit of Catherine Meddahi's thirty years of experience, spanning the media, the external relations departments of major high-profile industrial groups and advisory work on sensitive communications. Continuity is publicly defined: all the group's teams now operate under the Influences brand — the target's brand becoming the common banner — and the founder is staying on as an adviser to the group for two years.

Press coverage of the Calmon Partners–Influences acquisition

The deal was announced in late October 2024 and covered by the leading titles of the French communications trade press. The three publications:

Why this PR agency acquisition, and why this target

For Calmon Partners, the issue was the platform itself: a group that recruits finance executives, supports fundraisings and orchestrates its clients' press relations already held three links in the image chain — it lacked the fourth, opinion communications consultancy, the one that steers reputation at the moments that matter: crises, financial transactions, sensitive public statements. Rather than build this expertise, which takes a long time to become credible, the group acquired it ready-made — and the deal changed its scale, with growth of more than 50% in revenue and headcount. The ambition is stated in the announcement: to become the “partner of reference for companies”, in France and internationally, in managing their image and communications.

On the target side, Influences brought what no hire can create: eighteen years as an agency and, above all, its founder's thirty years of experience — from newsrooms to the external relations departments of major high-profile groups, through to advising on sensitive communications — distilled into a rare positioning, that of trusted third party within the information ecosystem. Its three areas of expertise — opinion, crisis and financial communications — match the group's clientele exactly: funds, banks and fintechs, for which every fundraising, every transaction and every crisis calls for this kind of advice. The two public decisions in the deal structure show the regard in which the target was held: its brand becomes the banner of all the group's teams, and its founder stays alongside the business for two years to support the handover.

Image and reputation consultancy consolidates around integrated platforms

This deal illustrates the reshaping of the French agency market: between the large international networks and the multitude of independent agencies, room is opening up for integrated platforms that bring together, under one brand, the adjacent image disciplines — press relations, opinion communications, crisis and financial communications. The pressure comes from clients: senior management teams want fewer counterparts and more continuity between their reputation, financing and talent issues — and agencies founded by a single personality, now facing succession, find in joining such platforms a way to secure their future that the advertising market did not offer them.

The deal also tells the story of a carefully structured, entirely public handover: financing supported by Caisse d'Épargne and BPI, growth of half in the group's revenue and headcount, and two rare gestures towards the target — its brand made the common banner of the combined business, and its founder appointed as adviser for two years, the time needed to pass on the relationships and culture that make an agency valuable. The consolidation is domestic and Parisian at its core, international in its horizon: the group targets France and international markets from its offices in Paris, London and Geneva.

Collaboration Capital's added value on this buy-side mandate

On this deal, Collaboration Capital acted as buy-side adviser. Acquiring a consultancy plays out in four stages — and the nature of the asset, a trusted brand carried by people, gives each of them a particular sensitivity.