 | |
| Industry | Public relations |
|---|---|
| Predecessors | Finsbury, Hering Schuppener, The Glover Park Group, Sard Verbinnen & Co |
| Founded | 1994 |
| Headquarters | |
Area served | Global |
Key people | Alexander Geiser (CEO) |
| Parent | WPP plc (57.4%) [1] |
| Website | fgsglobal |
FGS Global is a public relations company formed in 2021 by the merger of Finsbury Glover Hering and Sard Verbinnen & Co. It is a subsidiary of British advertising and media conglomerate WPP plc.
Finsbury was founded by Roland Rudd in 1994 as Finsbury. [2] In 2001, the firm was sold to WPP in a deal that the Financial Times estimated earned Rudd £40 million. [3] [4] Rudd remained chairman of the company. [3]
In 2011, Finsbury [2] merged with Robinson Lerer & Montgomery of New York to form RLM Finsbury. [5] [6] Rudd continued as chairman and Walter G. Montgomery became chief executive officer of the enlarged firm. Montgomery retired as chief executive officer in 2014 but remains a partner in the firm.
In 2012, The Times reported that Alisher Usmanov, a Russian billionaire who was about to launch one of the largest stock market listings in London for his MegaFon mobile phone company, hired RLM Finsbury which "covertly cleaned up his online image and removed details of his past" before the offering. [7] The Telegraph reported that RLM Finsbury staff anonymously "deleted details of a Soviet-era criminal conviction and freedom of speech row" and then "replaced those sections with text outlining Mr Usmanov's philanthropy and art collection." [8] According to O'Dwyer's PR, the firm publicly apologised in The Times, giving the following statement: "This was not done in the proper manner nor was this approach authorized by Mr. Usmanov. We apologize for this and it will not happen again." [9]
In 2014, RLM Finsbury rebranded to Finsbury which the firm felt would underline its global ambitions. [10]
In 2020, Finsbury developed "Finsbury's Workforce Return", a service that guided businesses in managing employees returning to the workplace after the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. [11]
In January 2021, Finsbury, The Glover Park Group (GPG), and Hering Schuppener completed their merger and management buy-in of 49.99%, and became known as Finsbury Glover Hering. [12] At that stage, the company had 18 offices and almost 700 consultants worldwide. WPP remained a 50.01% investor. [13] [14] Following the merger, Rudd and Carter Eskew, founder of GPG, served as co-chairs of the new firm, and Alexander Geiser, managing partner at Hering Schuppener, served as CEO. [13] [15] As of October 2021, the business was worth $917 million. [1]
In December 2021, Finsbury Glover Hering and Sard Verbinnen & Co. merged and rebranded as FGS Global, with Geiser appointed as CEO. [16] The agency then had 25 offices in North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East, and over 1,000 employees. [13] In October 2022, FGS Global opened its eighth office in Europe. [17] Also in 2022, the firm ranked number one in terms of the volume and the value of mergers and acquisitions deals. [18] In January 2023, FGS Global led communication consulting in operations in Spain. [19]
In April 2023, US private equity investor KKR was reported to be in talks to buy a stake in FGS Global. [20] On April 11, it was confirmed that KKR had agreed to buy a 30% stake in FGS Global that valued the company at about $1.4 billion. As part of the deal, existing investor Golden State Capital will sell its entire stake to KKR. [21] [22]
As of 2023, WPP owned 57.4% of FGS Global. Golden Gate Capital owned 40% of Sard Verbinnen & Co., and holds a small stake in FGS Global following the merger. About 40% of the company's employees are shareholders, of which 25.9% were FGH employees. [1]
The Glover Park Group was founded in June 2001 by former White House and Democratic campaign officials Michael Feldman, Carter Eskew, Joe Lockhart and Chip Smith. [23] [24] Based in Washington, D.C., the consultancy assisted companies with their legislative goals using television advertising and public relations. [25] In November 2011, Glover Park was acquired by WPP. At the time, the firm had $60 million in annual revenue. [23] [26]
Sard Verbinnen & Co. was founded in 1992 by George Sard and Paul Verbinnen. The firm managed deals, investor relations, and crises. As of 2021, the company had more than 200 employees. [27]
Hering Schuppener was founded in 1995 by Ralf Hering and Bernd Schuppener and headquartered in Düsseldorf, Germany. [28] [29] The firm assisted with capital market communication including acquisitions, mergers, and restructuring, and advised clients on crisis public relations, reputation issues, and political communication. [30] [31]
The Carlyle Group Inc. is a multinational private equity, alternative asset management and financial services corporation based in the United States with $376 billion of assets under management. It specializes in private equity, real assets, and private credit. It is one of the largest mega-funds in the world. In 2015, Carlyle was the world's largest private equity firm by capital raised over the previous five years, according to the PEI 300 index. In the 2023 ranking however, it had slipped to fifth place.
KKR & Co. Inc., also known as Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., is an American global investment company that manages multiple alternative asset classes, including private equity, energy, infrastructure, real estate, credit, and, through its strategic partners, hedge funds. As of December 31, 2022, the firm had completed more than 690 private equity investments in portfolio companies with approximately $700 billion of total enterprise value. As of December 31, 2022, assets under management (AUM) and fee paying assets under management (FPAUM) were $504 billion and $412 billion, respectively.
WPP plc is a British multinational communications, advertising, public relations, technology, and commerce holding company headquartered in London, England. It was the world's largest advertising company, as of 2019. WPP plc owns many companies, which include advertising, public relations, media, and market research networks such as AKQA, BCW, CMI Media Group, Essence Global, Finsbury, Grey, Hill+Knowlton Strategies, Mindshare, Ogilvy, Wavemaker, Wunderman Thompson, and VMLY&R. It is one of the "Big Four" agency companies, alongside Publicis, The Interpublic Group of Companies, and Omnicom Group. WPP has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange, and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
Ketchum Inc. is a global public relations firm, offering marketing, branding, and corporate communications services in the corporate, healthcare, food and beverage, and technology industries. George Ketchum founded the firm as a Pittsburgh-based advertising company in 1923. It later evolved to include a public relations practice. The firm is headquartered in New York City, with auxiliary offices and affiliates in North America, EMEA, Asia Pacific, and Latin America. The agency has been owned by Omnicom Group since 1996. Ketchum merged with Düsseldorf-based Pleon in one of the industry's largest mergers in 2009. It has been led by President and CEO Mike Doyle since 2020.
Apax Partners LLP is a British private equity firm, headquartered in London, England. The company also operates out of six other offices in New York, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Tel Aviv, Munich and Shanghai. As of December 2023, the firm had raised and advised funds of approximately $65 billion (USD). Apax Partners is one of the oldest and largest private equity firms operating on an international basis.
Hill & Knowlton is an American global public relations consulting company, headquartered in New York City. The firm has over 80 additional offices in more than 40 countries. The company was founded in Cleveland, in 1927 by John W. Hill and is now owned by the WPP Group.
Wella AG is a company specializing in hair care, styling, colorants, and other beauty products, and was founded in 1880 in Germany by Franz Ströher. Its headquartered in Darmstadt, Germany. The company was controlled by Procter & Gamble from 2003 until it was sold to Coty in 2015 along with some 40 other P&G brands. On December 1, 2020, Coty completed the sale of the Wella, Clairol, OPI and ghd brands stake to American private equity firm KKR for $2.5bn in cash whilst retaining 40% stake in the standalone company.
Goldman Sachs Asset Management Private Equity is the private equity arm of Goldman Sachs, focused on leveraged buyout and growth capital investments globally. The group, which is based in New York City, was founded in 1986.
Weber Shandwick is a marketing communications firm formed in 2001 by merging the Weber Group, Shandwick International and BSMG. The company is part of global agency network Interpublic Group (IPG), as part of the parent company's IPG DXTRA operating division.
Kantar Group is a global data, insights, and consulting company based in London, England. It was founded in 1992, and has approximately 30,000 employees in over 90 countries working in various research disciplines, including brand guidance, brand strategy, social media monitoring, advertising effectiveness, consumer and shopper behaviour, and public opinion.
VK, known as VK Group until 12 October 2021, is a Russian technology company. It started in 1998 as the parent company of Mail.ru, an e-mail service and went on to become a major corporate figure in the Russian-speaking segment of the Internet.
Alisher Burkhanovich Usmanov is an Uzbek–Russian businessman and oligarch. By 2023, Usmanov had an estimated net worth of $14.5 billion and was among the world's 100 wealthiest people.
Amber Augusta Rudd is a British former politician who served as Home Secretary from 2016 to 2018 and Secretary of State for Work and Pensions from 2018 to 2019. She was a Member of Parliament (MP) for Hastings and Rye, first elected in 2010, representing the Conservative Party, and stood down from parliament in 2019. She identifies herself as a one-nation conservative, and has been associated with both socially liberal and economically liberal policies.
The Glover Park Group was an American communications consulting firm headquartered in Washington, D.C. The company was founded in 2001 by former White House and Democratic campaign officials Carter Eskew, Michael Feldman, Joe Lockhart and Chip Smith. In January 2021, the firm merged with Finsbury and Hering Schuppener to form Finsbury Glover Hering, which itself later merged in December 2021 with New York City-based Sard Verbinnen & Co to form FGS Global.
Conflict-of-interest (COI) editing on Wikipedia occurs when editors use Wikipedia to advance the interests of their external roles or relationships. The type of COI editing of most concern on Wikipedia is paid editing for public relations (PR) purposes. Several Wikipedia policies and guidelines exist to combat conflict of interest editing, including Wikipedia:Conflict of interest and Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure.
MSLGROUP is a public relations (PR) network of companies. Specialists in strategic communications and engagement, the company is part of the French multinational Publicis Groupe. It evolved as a merger of Publicis Consultants and Manning Selvage & Lee.
Teneo is a public relations and advisory company. The company was founded in June 2011 by Declan Kelly, Paul Keary, and Doug Band, and currently has more than 1,450 employees located in 40 offices. In 2019, Teneo sold a majority stake to CVC Capital Partners, at a total valuation of around $700 million. Today the company is led by Chairwoman Ursula Burns and CEO Paul Keary.
Bruce Haynes is an American communications consultant. He is currently Chairman of Public Affairs, Managing Director and co-head of the Washington, D.C. office for Sard Verbinnen & Co., a global strategic communications and consulting firm.
Roland Dacre Rudd is the founder and chairman of Finsbury, a public relations firm. Rudd was educated at Oxford University, becoming President of the Oxford Union before starting a career in journalism that he left to found Finsbury. He sold that company to WPP plc in 2001, making an estimated £40 million.
Paramount Global is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate controlled by National Amusements and headquartered at One Astor Plaza in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. The company was formed on December 4, 2019, as ViacomCBS Inc. through the merger of the second incarnations of CBS Corporation and Viacom. The company changed its name to Paramount Global on February 16, 2022, the day after its Q4 earnings presentation.
| Divisions and subsidiaries |
|
|---|---|
| Former divisions and subsidiaries | |
| People | |
