Acosta Sales & Marketing

Acosta is a sales and marketing agency currently headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida. Their clients include Clorox and Coca-Cola, among others.[2]

Acosta Sales & Marketing
TypePrivate
IndustryMarketing
Founded1927
HeadquartersJacksonville, Florida, USA
Number of locations
110
Key people
Brian Wynne, President and CEO
ProductsRetail services
Marketing services
Revenue$1.85 billion[1]
Number of employees
37,000 ( approx )
Websitewww.acosta.com

History

Acosta was founded in 1927 by Lou Acosta.

An office in Tampa was opened and the service area expanded to central Florida. A branch in Birmingham, Alabama, was started in 1977. In 1981, Acosta opened a local office in Miami, Florida. In the 1980s, Acosta's operations spread throughout the southern United States. This included local franchises in Georgia through a 1983 acquisition of Raley Brothers, North Carolina and South Carolina in 1989, and later franchises in Louisiana, Tennessee and Virginia.

Acosta participated in multiple consolidations with other food retailers, manufacturers and procurement centers. By the mid-1990s, the company was servicing 27 markets and employed over 2,000 people.[3][4] These merges included:

  • PMI-Eisenhart [5] in July 1998
  • Kelley-Clarke[6] in June 1999
  • the MAI companies in August 1999
  • Luke Soules in July 2003
  • C. Lloyd Johnson Company, a military sales agency, in 2008[7]
  • FrontLine Marketing in 2010[8]
  • acquisition of Mosiac Sales Solutions, an interactive experiential marketing firm, in 2012[9]
  • acquisition of Anderson Daymon Worldwide in 2014[10]
  • acquisition of Actionlink in July 2017

In December 2019, Acosta filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and creditors took over the company.[11]

Outside advice and equity partner

Acosta has had partnerships with investment companies such as Berkshire Partners, AEA Investments, Thomas H. Lee, and The Carlyle Group.[12]

Leadership

In 1956, Common & Company Food Brokers merged with Acosta. Robert "Hy" Albritton, who owned Common, became president and CEO of Acosta when Lou Acosta retired in 1959.

In 1974 Hy Albritton retired and Delmer Dallas became company president.[3][13]

Former company president Delmer Dallas recruited Gary Chartrand from the Carnation Company in 1983. Chartrand was named president in 1993 and CEO, when Dallas retired in 1996. Two years later Chartrand was elected chairman of the board.[14]

On January 1, 2009, Gary Chartrand appointed Robert E. Hill Jr. as the company's president and CEO.[15]

Five senior-level executives at Acosta were selected as Progressive Grocer's 2014 Top Women in Grocery honorees.[16] Acosta participates in the Network of Executive Women (NEW) to promote opportunities for women in the CPG industry.[17]

See also

References
  1. "Carlyle Group to Buy In-Store Marketer Acosta". Wall Street Journal. 28 July 2014.
  2. Roumeliotis, Greg (July 28, 2014). "Carlyle nears $5 billion deal for Acosta: source". Reuters.
  3. Skidmore, Sarah (June 15, 2004). "Delmer Dallas, longtime local businessman, dies of cancer". Florida Times-Union.
  4. Veiders, Christina (July 9, 2010). "2010 Power 50: No. 40 Robert E. Hill Jr". Supermarket News.
  5. "Stocks". Bloomberg News.
  6. "Stocks". Bloomberg News.
  7. "Acosta Sales acquires C. Lloyd Johnson Co. - Jacksonville Business Journal". Archived from the original on 2015-04-02.
  8. "Alloy Sells Its FrontLine Marketing Business to Acosta" (Press release). Globe Newswire. June 8, 2010.
  9. "Adnews".
  10. "Acosta Sales and Marketing to acquire Anderson Daymon Worldwide".
  11. Doherty, Katherine; Hill, Jeremy (December 1, 2019). "Carlyle's Acosta Files Bankruptcy as Marketing Budgets Wane". Bloomberg News.
  12. Basch, Mark (January 5, 2011). "AEA sells controlling stake in Jacksonville-based Acosta". Florida Times-Union.
  13. "Robert Albritton Obituary (2006) - St. Petersburg, Florida - Tampa Bay Times". Legacy.com. Retrieved 2022-12-30.
  14. Veiders, Christina: "SN Power 50 for 2009-Gary Chartrand" Supermarket News, July 14, 2009
  15. Zwiebach, Elliot (July 18, 2011). "2011 Power 50: No. 42 Robert E. Hill Jr". Supermarket News.
  16. "PG Presents 2014 Top Women in Grocery". Progressive Grocer. June 4, 2014.
  17. "NEW partners honored by PG's Top Women in Grocery - Network of Executive Women". Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2015-08-14.
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