M&C Saatchi seems to be suffering a death by 1000 cuts: CEO Giles Hedger and ECD Justin Tindall (below), both recruited from Leo Burnett in the wake of the agency’s ill-fated dalliance with Lean Mean Fighting Machine, are both taking voluntary redundancy, citing their responsibility to go rather than more junior people.
The agency announced the voluntary redundancy scheme in the wake of losing its flagship NatWest account to The&Partnership, which happened around the same time it revealed an £11.6m hole in its group accounts. Three non-executive directors and agency co-founder Maurice Saatchi have also resigned.
There is still a business of sorts there in some of M&C’s subsidiaries (although some of these have been blamed for the accounting errors) and parts of its overseas network, although the value of this is hard to determine as much of it consists of minority stakes.These part business owners must be considering their own futures.
Strangely the company’s share price has recovered from a low of about 70 to 126, valuing the business at £117.3m. This may mean the market thinks a deal of sorts is in the offing or that a slimmed down M&C has a better chance of surviving.
