The advisory firm that has spent years helping marketing agencies find new owners has now found one of its own.

Green Square, the boutique mergers-and-acquisitions specialist that has been involved in some of the more notable transactions in the marketing services industry in recent years, is joining HaysMac, an accountancy and advisory firm based in London. The move, according to Green Square's partners, is less about grand ambition than about something more prosaic: they have been turning away work.

"Virtually all our work is referred," said Tony Walford, a partner at Green Square. "Our challenge has been that we've historically had to turn away a lot of projects due to growth limitations."

The timing is not incidental. Mr. Walford said that deal activity in the marketing sector is approaching something like a cyclical peak, driven in part by the pressure that artificial intelligence is placing on how agencies are structured and valued. Trade buyers and private equity firms are reassessing what capabilities they need, what complements their existing holdings and what no longer fits. The result is a market moving in two directions at once: buyers hunting for specific skills, and corporate parents shedding businesses that do not map to their future.

The most active part of the market, Mr. Walford said, is at the smaller end — agencies generating between one million and three million pounds in profit. Transactions involving agencies above five million pounds in profit have become rarer. (Caution, it seems, is the new ambition.)

Green Square, which was founded in 2008, has advised on transactions including Missouri Creative's acquisition by Ruder Finn, Precious Media's sale to MSQ and Amplify's move to Common Interest. By joining HaysMac, the firm gains the staff to take on more mandates and the infrastructure to offer clients what many have apparently been requesting: a single team that can handle corporate finance, tax, due diligence and personal financial planning.

For a firm that has made its living helping others find the right fit, the logic of finding one for itself is not difficult to follow.

Original story published in The Drum: "Marketing dealmaker Green Square gets one of its own as it joins HaysMac | The Drum"