Local Operator Has Anxious Eye On French Sortie
Sydney Morning Herald
Thursday February 14, 2008
THE French billionaire Vincent Bollore has been playing cat-and-mouse with the listed British marketing services group Aegis for two years in trying to gain control of the company and it looks as though he is set to make his move this year, with some interesting implications for the Australian market.
For one, Harold Mitchell's listed Mitchell Communications Group has a media buying joint venture in Australia with Bollore's other marketing services toy, the Paris-based Havas, which owns the Euro RSCG international advertising network and media buyer MPG.Mitchell is a direct competitor with the Aegis-owned Carat Media group and there is a possibility that Bollore's move on Aegis could dramatically alter Mitchell's plans to expand into Asia via a joint venture with Havas and its MPG media unit. Carat already has a strong Asian network and if Bollore gets control of Aegis, Carat could well deliver an easier way to tap Asia than a start-up venture with a powerful Australian operator who has little expertise in Asia. Certainly Harold Mitchell can count on the heavy-hitting political family dynasty of Singapore's Lee family as shareholders in his Australian company, but what they could or would deliver around the region for Mitchell is unknown. It is all highly speculative right now, although there is no doubt team Bollore is stepping up the rhetoric and heat on a reluctant Aegis. Bollore has just under 30 per cent of Aegis and has been pushing for two board seats, which Aegis has consistently blocked on the grounds of it being a conflict of interest because of Bollore's control of Havas. But during a visit last month to Australia, the worldwide chief executive of Euro RSCG, David Jones, who also sits on the Havas board, was unusually robust when responding to questions about the two companies. "My advice to Aegis is the sooner you let Vincent Bollore get involved the better," Jones told the Herald. "He hasn't built up that kind of stake in Aegis not to play a role and have involvement so we will see what happens. If you look at Havas before and after Vincent, he has fundamentally turned the company around. Aegis is a great company and there are huge synergies between what the businesses can do."Interestingly, Jones cites the "size and scale" synergies of combining the media clout of the Havas and Aegis media units as something that will be "very interesting". Jones claimed he did not know what the implications might be for the Mitchell joint venture in Australia or Asia but reports from Britain last week said so confident is Bollore of getting control of Aegis he has asked his senior management to suggest how some of the Aegis operating companies might be handled. Coincidentally, about the time as Jones was in Australia, Aegis chairman Lord Sharman was also in town. The former worldwide chairman of KPMG seemed comfortable about Bollore's intentions for Aegis but only on the basis that he paid a premium for control of the group. What Sharman does not buy is Bollore's tactics to gain influence over the company with a minority stake. "We still have ongoing dialogue," Lord Sharman told the Herald. "He may have in his mind that when the share price drops to a level he thinks is doable he will bid, but I don't have any information to say whether that is right."
© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald