Citigate First Financial – Behind the Scenes #4

In the past half year, we have worked on great projects for clients including Coca-Cola European Partners, Hudson’s Bay Company and NN Group.

We also supported The Ocean Cleanup with a new technological milestone: founder and CEO Boyan Slat presented an improved design and concept of his project that will allow him to start the actual extraction of plastics from the oceans two years earlier than planned. Great work by Boyan and his team!

And we are very happy to welcome four talented communications specialists (press release) to our team: Janneke Dijkstra, Peter Roggeband, Rick van Holst Pellekaan and Teun Verhagen.

Inside Citigate

    • An ongoing story in 2017 has been the interest of foreign companies in the acquisition of Dutch listed multinationals. This topic dominated the business news sections of Dutch newspapers in the first half of 2017. Given the political, media and corporate relevance of this subject, we have been keeping close track of this developing discussion for a broad range of our multinational clients.
    • Citigate has provided Avantium with strategic communications advice (strategy and execution), communications planning, preparations, and actions for the run up to and during the IPO process. Since an IPO is just the start of life as a listed company, we have not only supported the transaction, but also focused on the corporate positioning of Avantium and its game-changing technology for a biobased future.

 

  • Our client Coca-Cola European Partners (CCEP) announced its plans to switch to a sugar-free version of regular Sprite in the Netherlands. In a large interview with Het Financieele Dagblad, Jaap Wassink (country director at bottling company CCEP NL) and Richard Schlasberg (country director at Coca-Cola Company NL) elaborated on the trend that Dutch consumers more often opt for healthier drinks. Het Financieele Dagblad’s interview about Sprite global premier in the Netherlands was one of the most-read articles in the newspaper’s history. The news was picked up by a broad range of news media including Hart van Nederland, de Volkskrant, and NOS Journaal.
  • Which of the many, many online news article will be trending in the coming hours? New software, with predictive algorithms, is giving our analysts a sneak peek in the future! The latest trend in media monitoring, predictive media intelligence is now a part of Citigate’s standard offering. It is now optionally available for all our clients. Make sure that you are always one step ahead, and contact our team of analysts for more information!
  • Techshare is Euronext’s international educational and mentoring program. It aims to familiarize leaders of fast-growing tech companies with the financial markets. For the third time in a row, Citigate First Financial was selected as one of the expert partners for training and mentoring a selected CEOs and CFOs of promising Dutch tech scale-ups. The third edition of Techshare (2017 – 2018) will start at the end of September with an international kick off with around 80 tech entrepreneurs at HEC in Paris.

  • Citigate has been supporting Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) for more than a year now. In the past months, we guided HBC in its communication of the first 10 store-openings. We manage media relations for different locations in the Netherlands and HBC’s recruitment program. We also support the communication of HBC and its neighbors during construction and renovation works. To familiarize relevant media with HBC we not only organized a ‘peek behind the scenes’ during renovations and construction, we also invited media on a tour around what will become the restaurant of celebrity chef Ron Blaauw at Hudson’s Bay’s Amsterdam Rokin

 

  • NN Group has appointed Citigate to inform its corporate communications team about need-to-know media developments about the company, its brands and the insurance industry. To this effect, Citigate’s team of analysts will distribute daily coverage overviews and on-request breaking news coverage.
  • Citigate supported Stichting Volkswagen Car Claim in launching its website dasclaim.nl and announcing the preparations of legal proceedings on behalf of 180,000 Dutch Volkswagen drivers. They seek compensation for the car emissions scandal that became known as ‘dieselgate’. Foundation director Guido van Woerkom was interviewed by De Telegraaf, which resulted in a front page article. The news was picked up by leading news outlets including NU.nl and trade media such as Autowereld.
  • A computer virus designed to create irreparable damage but disguised as malware, affected a large number of companies across the world in June. Citigate provided crisis communications support to a large Dutch multinational that could no longer use its systems.
  • Boyan Slat, founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup Foundation, revealed to fans, supporters and (inter)national press an improved design and concept of his project that will allow him to start the actual extraction of plastics from the oceans two years earlier than planned. As a proud supporter of The Ocean Cleanup, we managed media relations and public relations running up to and during the event, just as we have done for previous milestones. Watch the awesome video by CNN about The Ocean Cleanup’s new design for the largest ocean cleanup in history.

One more thing…

  • In the second half of this year, Citigate will celebrate its 25th anniversary! More information about the festivities will be announced later.

More information

Learn more about our new team members or our corporate and financial communications services? Please contact us at +31 (0) 20 575 40 10 or info@citigateff.nl.

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