Finance

By James Harries, analyst WPP, the world’s largest marketing group, shares hit a five-year low in July amidst continued uncertainty following the departure of long-term chief executive Sir Martin Sorrell, as well as the uncertainty of GDPR. Former COO Mark ...

The UK has a big new multi-media player, Global Media & Entertainment, the owner of Capital, LBC and Classic FM radio stations, is buying out of home companies Primesight and Outdoor Plus. Primesight turns over about £60m with Outdoor Plus ...

Is something up at JWT? Everyone is expecting a big announcement from new WPP CEO Mark Read soon and, among the favoured candidates is a merger of one of WPP’s creative networks with a digital one, either Wunderman or VML. ...

When top Swedish creative shop Forsman & Bodenfors joined MDC Partners a couple of years ago we noted it was a high risk strategy and events seem to be bearing this out. Originally F&B was to be combined in an ...

As WPP pivots its offering to reflect life after Sorrell, much has been made of the potential breakup of his sprawling empire, its data division, Kantar in particular. A sale of Kantar as well as some the treasure trove of ...

If the furore over fake news and brand safety has taught us anything, it’s that trust is set to be the major factor determining where the advertising money goes in future. Impartial, well-funded news was always supported by advertising revenues ...

Is more changing of the guard afoot among the holding companies? Campaign reckons that Interpublic CEO Michael Roth (below) has told the board he’s planning to step down (Roth is 72 and due to retire at 75) and notes that ...

Wieden+Kennedy has been shuffling the deck chairs in Portland although in its case the liner seems to be sailing serenely on. CCO Colleen DeCourcy and Tom Blessington, who’s returning to the agency after a year at YouTube, are its new ...

Who’s going to buy MDC Partners now? We’ve asked this question before (and had no takers) but chairman and CEO Scott Kauffman has resigned after three years during which time the company seemed to be recovering until it missed all ...