Foley & Lardner LLP served as legal adviser to MMGY Global, LLC, a Peninsula Fund company, in its recent acquisition of Wagstaff Media & Marketing, a leading integrated public relations and marketing agency specializing in the travel, culinary, and hospitality lifestyle industries. The deal marks MMGY Global’s further geographic expansion in North America, significantly boosting its West Coast presence and senior talent, doubling the size of its public relations practice, and enhancing the agency’s expertise with travel tangential categories, including lifestyle, wine and spirits, and culinary.
MMGY Global’s ongoing strategy is to grow its global footprint and ability to service existing and prospective clients worldwide. Wagstaff Media & Marketing is the tenth acquisition by MMGY Global since private equity firm Peninsula Capital Partners made a significant equity investment in the company in February 2016. The investment further strengthens the company’s aggressive acquisition strategy, which includes global expansion and its commitment to integration across all travel marketing channels. With the addition of Wagstaff’s San Francisco and Chicago locations, MMGY Global will now have over 500 employees and operate in 13 markets globally.
Wagstaff Media & Marketing will become known as MMGY Wagstaff, and MMGY Wagstaff and MMGY Global’s existing North American PR, social, and experiential brand, MMGY NJF, will continue to operate separately. Both will work with MMGY Global’s European PR brand, MMGY Grifco, to connect clients to international markets.
The Foley deal team was led by Partners Steven Hilfinger and Brandee Diamond and included Associates Matt Kiel, Leslie Pinney, and Maximilian Traut.
