The credit card services company Alliance Data Systems Corp. of Dallas is buying Bigfoot Interactive Inc., a provider of automated marketing services and technology, for $120 million.
The deal was announced Thursday and is expected to close this fall.
Bigfoot, an 85-employee company based in New York, reported revenue of $30 million for 2004. It is to be renamed Epsilon Interactive as a unit of Alliance's Epsilon Data Management Inc. subsidiary.
Bigfoot's chief executive, Al DiGuido, would be the president of Epsilon Interactive, which would be based in New York and retain the Bigfoot employees.
Epsilon Interactive would be Alliance's main provider of interactive marketing services.
Alliance said one of Bigfoot's principal services is a real-time system for delivering marketing by e-mail, regular mail, and telephone. Its financial services customers include JPMorgan Chase & Co., Capital One Financial Corp., and Discover Financial Services Inc.
Mike Iaccarino, the president of Epsilon Data Management, said in a press release that Bigfoot "addresses both the significant demand for, and the market's rapid growth of, multichannel marketing services, technologies, and database solutions."
Alliance said the acquisition would probably have little impact on its 2006 earnings.
Epsilon Data Management is based in Dallas and has offices in Boston, St. Louis, and Washington.
