ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., Feb. 19, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — Catalina, the market leader in shopper intelligence and personalized digital media that converts shoppers into buyers, today announced that it has successfully completed its financial restructuring and emerged from Chapter 11. Through this process, Catalina has reduced its debt by 85 percent – from $1.9 billion to $276 million. The company moves forward under new ownership comprising its existing lenders.

“This is an exciting day for Catalina as we just became a stronger and very competitive company with solid cash flow, low debt, a healthy balance sheet and a robust digital product pipeline,” said Jerry Sokol, Catalina’s President and CEO. “We believe we have the best media and data platforms, and we are accelerating our investment in disruptive technologies to further Catalina’s in-store, digital, data and advanced analytics businesses to help our customers transform the buyer experience. We are also fortifying our buyer intelligence data and adding depth to our personalization capabilities to power our new digital products and solutions.”

Mr. Sokol continued, “Above all, our successful emergence from Chapter 11 is a testament to our talented employees who continue to deliver exceptional service and value to our customers. I am honored to lead this fantastic team as we focus on solving customers’ challenges.”

Catalina also announced today that Michael Bailey will serve as Chief Technology Officer, reporting to CEO Jerry Sokol. Mr. Bailey is an experienced business operator and Six Sigma Black Belt who has served as CTO for Diversified Foodservice Supply, Chief Information Officer for Sygen International and PeoplePC, and VP Technology for Staples. His primary focus will be on enhancing and scaling the company’s computing power and data security, and optimizing performance of all Catalina’s data and analytics solutions, from personalization and consumer choice modeling, to revenue management and multi touch attribution. 

Mr. Bailey’s appointment reflects the evolution of Catalina’s leadership structure to efficiently transform the business. Mr. Bailey joins Chief Product Officer Kevin Hunter and the company’s Chief Data and Analytics Officer, Dr. Wes Chaar, who are harnessing machine learning and artificial intelligence, and creating new algorithms to bring powerful new solutions to market. Catalina recently introduced a groundbreaking attribution solution that provides a granular, real-time view of national campaign performance in stores at the UPC-level. Multi-Touch AttributR utilizes Catalina’s proprietary ID graph, which maps millions of digital IDs to shopper IDs to definitively close the gap between digital engagement and in-store sales. In the weeks ahead, the company will introduce new offerings that add dimension to its existing personalization capabilities.

“Catalina has a diverse mix of skillsets and some of the smartest people in the industry, as well as a compelling set of offerings that drive results for an impressive group of customers,” said Mr. Bailey. “I am excited to extend our technology capabilities in short order to unlock new personalization capabilities.”

Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP served as legal counsel, Centerview Partners LLC served as financial advisor and FTI Consulting served as restructuring advisor to Catalina.

About Catalina

Catalina is a recognized leader in highly targeted, personalized digital media that drives, tracks and measures sales lift for leading CPG retailers and brands. Powered by the most extensive shopper database in the world, Catalina’s mobile, online and in-store networks personalize the consumer’s path to purchase, delivering $7.9 billion in relevant consumer value each year. Catalina has no higher priority than ensuring the privacy and security of the data entrusted to us and maintaining the consumer trust paramount to the continued success of our business partners and Catalina. Based in St. Petersburg, FL, Catalina has operations in the United States, Europe, Japan and Latin America. To learn more, please visit www.catalina.com or follow us on Twitter @Catalina.

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SOURCE Catalina