Aimia forms global strategic partnership with Fractal Analytics, an advanced analytics company

MONTREAL, Aug. 12, 2014 /PRNewswire/ - Aimia, a global leader in loyalty management, has formed a strategic long-term partnership with Fractal Analytics, a leading provider of advanced analytics. The exclusive commercial agreement will deepen Aimia's analytics capabilities, extending its unparalleled customer insights to deliver a more comprehensive understanding of consumer behavior and improve marketing return-on-investment. It will also extend Aimia's loyalty expertise to Fractal's existing clients. As part of the partnership, Aimia is making a minority equity investment in Fractal.

The partnership expands Aimia's analytics operations, giving it access to best-in-class analytics to enhance its current core capabilities and the opportunity to rapidly embed some of Fractal's existing predictive analytics solutions such as Customer Genomics® into Aimia's loyalty solutions.  It will also allow more rapid development of new offerings leveraging rich customer data across its programs, products and regions.

"This strategic partnership gives Aimia dedicated access to specialized and scarce top talent as our global analytics business continues to grow," said Eric Monteiro, Chief Strategy and Analytics Officer, Aimia, who will join Fractal's board of directors as part of the equity investment.  "Fractal brings a mature and experienced team of sophisticated analytics professionals to meet the complex needs of our clients."

"CMOs across industries increasingly recognize the importance of deeply understanding their customers and hyper-personalizing their experience to inspire their loyalty," said Srikanth Velamakanni, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Fractal Analytics. "Our partnership with Aimia gives companies access to the world's best loyalty analytics expertise."

Founded in 2000, Fractal provides advanced analytics to more than 50 Fortune 1,000 global companies. Fractal has 13 offices across the globe and expects to grow its global headcount from 700 to more than 1,000 by the end of 2014.

About Aimia

Aimia Inc. ("Aimia") is a global leader in loyalty management. Employing more than 4,300 people in 20 countries worldwide, Aimia offers clients, partners and members proven expertise in launching and managing coalition loyalty programs, delivering proprietary loyalty services, creating value through loyalty analytics and driving innovation in the emerging digital, mobile and social communications spaces.

Aimia owns and operates Aeroplan, Canada's premier coalition loyalty program, Nectar, the United Kingdom's largest coalition loyalty program, Nectar Italia, and Smart Button, a leading provider of SaaS loyalty solutions. In addition, Aimia owns stakes in Air Miles Middle East, Travel Club, Spain's leading coalition loyalty program, Club Premier, Mexico's leading coalition loyalty program, China Rewards, the first coalition loyalty program in China that enables members to earn and redeem a common currency,  Think Big, the owner and operator of BIG - AirAsia and Tune Group's loyalty program, Brazil's Prismah Fidelidade and i2c, a joint venture with Sainsbury's offering insight and data analytics services in the UK to retailers and suppliers.  Aimia also holds a minority position in Cardlytics, a US-based private company operating in card-linked marketing,  Aimia is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: AIM). For more information, visit us at www.aimia.com.

About Fractal Analytics

Fortune 500 companies recognize analytics is a competitive advantage to understand customers and make better decisions. Fractal Analytics delivers insight, innovation and impact to them through predictive analytics and visual story-telling.

Fractal Analytics' flagship Customer Genomics® solution helps marketers learn complex customer behavior at an individual level. Its proprietary pattern recognition and machine-learning algorithms learn from every transaction and customer interaction, including social media, to help marketers build a complete view of individual customers across attitudinal and behavioral dimensions. In June of 2013, global private equity firm TA Associates acquired a minority stake in the company for an investment of $25 million, and in May of 2013, information technology and research advisor Gartner named Fractal as one of the top five "Cool Vendors in Analytics." Learn more at www.fractalanalytics.com

SOURCE AIMIA