Australian Communications Leader Bastion Collective Makes Significant Investment in US-Based Agency Acquisition Model

By MTS Staff Writer On Jan 7, 2019

Bastion Collective, arguably the largest privately-owned Australian communications group, is making a significant investment in the US market, opening a Southern California headquarters to anchor a new—and rapidly expanding—Bastion Collective division in America.

Bastion Collective is expanding aggressively in the US, most recently with the addition of three forward-thinking Orange County and Los Angeles based communications agencies that will work in collaboration to provide a full suite of services for their clientele. Bastion Collective is currently looking to invest 20 percent of their projected $55 + million annual revenue into US-based agencies. Each newly acquired company is projected to scale quickly, doubling their size and revenue by utilizing the resources within the Collective to draw ideas, resources, connections and new business opportunities as a fully integrated solution.

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Dax Cornelius, who served as an officer (major) and highly decorated US Air Force F-16 combat fighter pilot, provides the foundational leadership and vision as the CEO/USA of Bastion Collective to replicate what Bastion has achieved abroad. Bastion Collective provides an ecosystem for the next-generation communications platform.

Cornelius brings a wealth of M&A, sales and branding expertise, leveraging prior experience with Air Force branding initiatives and having generated more than $1 billion in sales and product launches with Fortune 500 Textron’s Cessna Aircraft and Piper Aircraft Company. Additionally, Cornelius has held a multitude of C-level positions in the private equity, intellectual property, exploration, manufacturing and consulting sectors, coaching companies averaging $20- 30 million per annum.

“Our industry is seeing massive disruption across the major communications conglomerates because the way people consume data has drastically changed over the past decade,” said Cornelius. “This unforecasted change has caused the larger but less reactive giants to fail, providing great opportunities for Bastion Collective. Smaller, more nimble and innovative agencies are already pivoting in the industry as they understand two things: clients have become equally cost, revenue and value driven; and relevant communications agencies understand the way people consume content. Relying on a big name, throwing money at campaigns and old marketing service solutions don’t move the needle anymore. Bastion Collective is creating a culture and an atmosphere that allows creative, driven service solutions agencies to come together, utilize one another’s value and deliver superior results in today’s evolving marketplace.”

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Bastion Collective sets itself apart from others in the industry by refraining from acquiring competing agencies or businesses with overlapping services. Instead, each agency will add to the Collective with their unique set of core competencies and varied industry expertise—allowing each agency to provide support for one another’s business, clients and the success of each campaign or project the Collective is engaged with.

Another differentiator for Bastion Collective is that all heads of the respective agencies within Bastion Collective have ownership.

“By our CEO’s having skin in the game and being allowed to run their respective business, the agencies within the Collective are able to maintain a mentality of service-before-self, clients before margin and plug into the success of other agencies within Bastion Collective in the US and across the globe,” said Fergus Watts, founder and executive chairman of Bastion Collective. “Our focus is on finding the right agencies with diverse and complementary capabilities that will allow each individual business to thrive. The aim is to provide our customers with a truly comprehensive set of communications services to take advantage of as they grow and their needs evolve.”