Mitchell Communications Merging With Japanese Firm

PR Week reports that Japanese communications giant Dentsu Network has acquired Mitchell Communications Group, a Fayetteville-based public relations firm that does business with Walmart, Tyson Foods, J.B. Hunt, Procter and Gamble and other major regional firms.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

According to the report, Mitchell Communications will retain its Fayetteville home office and its 75 full-time staffers and 28 project-based employees in 14 states.

From PR Week:

Agency president and CEO Elise Mitchell will remain in her position as chief executive, and she will take on the dual role of CEO of Dentsu’s global PR network that she will help to build. Sarah Clark, EVP and chief strategy officer at Mitchell, has been promoted to president.

“The reason that we joined the Dentsu Network is that we wanted to accelerate our growth and expand our capability to better serve our clients,” explained Mitchell. “We saw this as a great opportunity to continue to get better at doing what we do and to be able to really build out on a national and global scale.”

Mitchell will report to Tim Andree, CEO of Dentsu Network. While she will remain based in Arkansas, Andree said she will have an office in New York so she can work with clients from either location.

Dentsu’s PR expansion plans may come from acquisition, growing operations within its other firms, or extending Mitchell’s brand.

Mitchell Communications posted revenue in 2011 of roughly $11 million. You can read more on the deal here.