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Category: WPP

  • WPP’s Premi?re Group strengthens consultancy team

    MUMBAI: Premi?re Group, which is the WPP’s sports and entertainment marketing consultancy, has appointed two new sponsorship consultants..
     
     
    Ian Warbrick who previously served as a management consultant with Accenture has joined the Premiere Group. Kamal Bindra joins Premi?re having spent six years in various consultancy and brand management roles in south east Asia. These include marketing roles with the Times of India Group and the Barista chain of café bars.
     
     

    Premi?re Group CEO Jim O’Toole commented “Kamal and Ian bring valuable brand experience to the team. This will add fresh insights to the way we work with our clients in meeting their sponsorship and partnership challenges.”

  • WPP buys outstanding debt in Cordiant to strengthen its takeover bid

    LONDON: The UK-based advertising company WPP group has announced that it will buy the outstanding debt in Cordiant Communications Group for ?90 million ($150 million), making it the sole debt holder of the troubled company. WPP bought the debt from Cerberus Capital Management, the US investment fund.

    The acquisition, brings WPP another step closed to taking over Cordiant after agreeing on 19 June to acquire it in a deal that valued it at ?266 million in stock and assumed debt, beating out the offer from its rival Publicis.
     
    A Reuters report states that WPP faces a challenge from Active Value, a fund management firm, but this acquisition is seen strengthening WPP’s hand against Active Value. Active Value is Cordiant’s largest shareholder and is fighting to block WPP’s takeover.

    Last week, WPP paid Cordiant’s other debt holders ?177 million for their debt, valuing it at par value, without having to make any extra so-called “make-whole” payment. WPP said it paid Cerberus ?90 million for the debt with a par value of ?79 million and an extra ?11 million to cover accrued interest and “make-whole” payments, which are bonuses banks demand for lending to high-risk borrowers. The equity of Cordiant is valued at just ?10 million through the deal.

    Earlier this week, activist shareholder fund Active Value Fund Managers Ltd. boosted its stake in Cordiant to more than 25 per cent, allowing it to block WPP’s takeover deal, which requires the support of 75 per cent of shareholders.

    Active Value hasn’t publicly stated its intentions, although analysts have speculated that they hope to force WPP’s Martin Sorrell to improve his offer, or flush out a better offer from Publicis Groupe SA or New York-based media company Grey Global Group.

    However, WPP has said that if its offer is blocked it will force Cordiant into administration, which would leave shareholders with nothing and cause a client exodus. With 100 per cent of Cordiant’s debt, WPP is in a stronger position to make such a call.

    Cordiant shareholders, meanwhile, will meet Saturday, 28 June in London to approve the disposal of the group’s Australian and German businesses. The vote on WPP’s takeover bid is planned for July.

  • WPP India becomes Group M Media

    MUMBAI: It was in January this year that all the media operating units of the WPP Group was brought under one entity titled ‘Group M’.
     
     
    Eleven months later (Friday last to be precise), the name change was effected in India as well. WPP Marketing Communications India Pvt Ltd is now officially Group M Media India Pvt Ltd.

    While the move globally was to ensure synergies in back room functions like research, in India, other than the change in title, the operational impact will probably be negligible.

    Coming under Group M is Mindshare, Mindshare Fulcrum and Maximise (which earlier made up WPP Marketing Communications India) and also includes the other specialist units Broadmind, ATG-MCI, mDigital and CIU.

    Sai Nagesh, director – marketing and corporate affairs, Group M, clarified that all operating units like Minsdshare, Maximize and Fulcrum that were earlier under WPP would continue to function as separate operational entities.

  • WPP group confirms being in the fray for acquiring Cordiant

    LONDON: The WPP group, Britain’s largest advertising company and one of the largest advertising networks in the world, confirmed on Monday, 2 June 2003, that it is considering the purchase of the Cordiant the second-largest UK ad firm. The WPP group has joined a group of potential bidder. The UK-based Cordiant Communications is a major stakeholder in prominent ad and media agencies such as Bates and Zenith Media – which have Indian offshoots too.

    In early May, an adage report stated that the communications group, which announced its preliminary results, has been given until July 15 to complete the sales of three major marketing agency holdings: PR agency Financial Dynamics; ad agency Scholz and Friends; and Australian ad agency George Patterson Bates. The fourth [the sale of its stake in Zenith Optimedia] sale is planned for January. Experts state that the four sales are expected to fetch Cordiant around $220 million — almost enough to pay off its debts — provided there are no more major client losses before the deals are completed.

    A Guardian report stated that a consortium of banks led by HSBC agreed to ignore a breach to loan agreements and continue to guarantee borrowings of about ?250m until July 15 following the group’s damaging loss of big client Allied Domecq, the drinks group.

    “With regards to Cordiant, we can only confirm that we are continuing to undertake due diligence,” a WPP spokesman was quoted as saying in a Reuters report.

    Reports have also linked US hedge fund Cerebrus Capital Management with a possible takeover of Cordiant.