Publicis paid £100m for balance of BBH

MORETON IN MARSH, U.K. - July 7, 2013 - PRLog -- Publicis Groupe, the French based global marketing group, paid £100 million to acquire the residual 51% controlling interest in BBH Communications last year, according to figures obtained by the industry’s financial research company Fintellect and published in Marketing Services Financial Intelligence (www.fintellect.com/msfi).  BBH Communications owns the iconic world famous British advertising agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty.

According to the Fintellect research, the sale of the residual shareholding concluded a series of transactions over 15 years that together have generated about £134 million for the founders and other employees of this formerly privately owned business.

In 1997 a 49% stake in BBH was sold to the US advertising agency Leo Burnett (now owned by Publicis) for about £34 million.

BBH shareholders also benefitted by £25 million from the sale of the group's 64% stake in Starcom Motive to Publicis Groupe in 2003.  However, those proceeds were retained in the BBH group and incorporated within the final £100 million payment last year.

“The total payback to BBH’s founders and employees over time of around £134 million is a mighty testament to the success of the group founded by John Bartle, Sir Nigel Bogle and Sir John Hegarty”, commented the report’s author Bob Willott.  John Bartle retired from BBH in 1999.

The shareholdings in BBH were always spread widely among employees. Nevertheless Marketing Services Financial Intelligence estimates that the remaining founders Bogle and Hegarty each may have received about £13 million for their shares in this latest transaction.