CheetahMail merges with CM Group

CM Group has announced a merger with email service provider/customer engagement platform Cheetah Digital (aka CheetahMail, once upon a time owned by Experian, later spun out standalone, with leadership and a lot of higher-level positions more recently filled by ex-ExactTarget and Salesforce folks). This would seem to bring Cheetah under common ownership with Campaign Monitor, Emma, Delivra, Sailthru and Selligent.

This is very clearly being presented as a merger and I'm not seeing any information about a potential cost for acquisition. Usually these kind of things happen because private investors want to cash out -- I'm assuming there's something to that here, and I suspect we'll see more on this in the tech industry press in the coming days. Stay tuned!

Read the press release here.

Pictured: The Guaranty Building in downtown Indianapolis, which was one of the first headquarters for ExactTarget, now Salesforce Marketing Cloud. If you look closely, you can see the "Cheetah Digital" oval sign on the pillar to the right of to the front door. I spent a lot of time in this building, once upon a time. And in that fantastic cocktail lounge located on the lower level. (Image from Google Earth.)

[ H/T: Keith Kouzmanoff and Andrew Bonar ]