French headquartered advertising company Havas in early talks to buy a stake in British rival WPP, according to a report in the The Times.
Both companies’ Australian businesses declined to comment on the news, but have privately told B&T they are unaware of any discussions.
A senior advertising executive, who spoke to the US advertising title Adweek, claimed that both parties were in “very serious” discussions about a minority stake that stems on how to value WPP.
A week ago, B&T learned that WPP had fallen off the influential MSCI United Kingdom index after its market capitalisation value had dropped to £3.01 billion (AU$6.07 billion).
Earlier this month, British investment firm Redwheel acquired a 5.25 per cent stake in the holding company, which has reportedly been the target of a bid by rival consultancy Accenture Song.
Havas has been actively looking for strategic partnerships in the industry. Havas and Horizon Media launched a joint venture to unite the media operations of both holding companies to better service US based multinationals.
WPP is many times larger than Havas with more than 110,000 staff compared to Havas’ 23,000.
However its value has plummeted since its heyday in 2017, when the business was worth £24 billion.
New WPP CEO Cindy Rose has enlisted the consultancy McKinsey & Company to help out with a strategic review, after labelling WPP’s global performance as “unacceptable”.
WPP Media’s performance in Australia is in rude health; it recently topped a RECMA qualitative ranking at a group level, but WPP has struggled in the US and parts of the UK and Europe.
