Guaranty Communications has acquired Gatorworks, a Baton Rouge-based digital media company that specializes in branding, website development and digital marketing.
Terms of the deal, which becomes effective today, were not disclosed.
For Guaranty, which is a subsidiary of Guaranty Corp. and the parent company of Guaranty Media, the acquisition of a digital marketing agency represents a foray into a new field. Guaranty Media owns five local radio stations, but acquiring Gatorworks will enable the company to operate in both the traditional and new media spheres.
“This will allow us to take what Gatorworks does and offer their services to our current client base,” says Guaranty Corp. President and CEO Flynn Foster. “All of our clients do the things to some degree that Gatorworks offers. Everybody has a website or does SEO, or does online branding or marketing. Now, we will be able to offer those services to our clients.”
Under the terms of the acquisition, Gatorworks will continue to operate as an independent entity headed by its founder and president, Brian Rodriguez. For now, the company and its employees will remain in their Bennington Avenue offices—located just behind the Starbucks on College Drive—though they may relocate to a larger space later this year.
For Rodriguez, who founded Gatorworks in 2002 as a part time venture while still a student at LSU, the decision to sell the company came after nearly a year of talks with Guaranty.
“I did not have my sights set on selling the business, but as they say timing is everything,” Rodriguez says. “Flynn approached me with a deal that really made a lot of sense for both Guaranty Media and Gatorworks. … Guaranty is already having marketing conversations with their clients everyday (in regard to radio), so it was a natural fit to be able to provide a more integrated marketing approach with digital services.”
Foster first approached Rodriguez last August. He says Guaranty is always looking for new ways to increase its revenue stream and had seen other radio groups around the country make similar successful acquisitions.
“We put a group of digital media agencies in Baton Rouge on the wall and figured out who we might know and what they did and we started narrowing it down,” Foster says.
Foster expects the acquisition to increase Guaranty’s revenues by some 15%. Though Gatorworks does not disclose revenues, Rodriguez confirms sales have more than doubled since revenues were last reported in 2012 to be in the $500,000 range.
—Stephanie Riegel
