Week 4 BOC: Publicis and Omnicom Merger

This week in France there was a major merger between two behemoths in the Advertising world, Omnicom Group Inc. and Publicis Groupe SA . Combined they are worth about Thirty-five Billion Dollars. "It's not clear yet who really is in the driver's seat…" The name of the new combined company will be Publicis Omnicom Group and it will be jointly led by Publicis’ CEO Maurice Levy and Omnicom’s CEO John Wren as co-chief executives. Overall this seems like a major decision that may change the face of advertising or how we will see ads in the years to come.

http://news.yahoo.com/omnicom-publicis-combine-biggest-ad-firm-220845588.html

Shareholders of Publicis will receive a share of the new company for each share they have with Publicis, however, Omnicom shareholders will only receive about 80% of the shares of Publicis Omnicom Group for each Omnicom share they own, as well as a special dividend of $2 per share, plus quarterly dividend payments. Not only are the shareholders affected, but the clients seem to have rivalries already. For example, Pepsi and Coca-Cola, Taco Bell and McDonald's“…this merger to benefit our clients by bringing together the most comprehensive offering of analogue and digital services." So I guess we shall see what happens from this point.

(maybe not as much, but still), and Procter & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson now find themselves under the same roof. Maurice Levy said that

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23483104

Recent history shows that mergers of this nature didn’t fare well in the past. Like in 2000, Vivendi SA  bought Canada’s Seagram Co. to have access to Universal Studios Inc. Since then, Vivendi has sold parts of the asset and is undergoing a strategy. Then again, Sanofi’s $20 billion takeover of Genzyme Corp. in 2011 gave the French drug makers the ability to replenish its platform of treatments and be able to reach a broader base. According to  Levy ,“This started out as a joke, but the more we looked at the idea the less we thought it was stupid.”  Being able to combine and conquer seems to be a great idea for this new age of advertising and only time will tell where this all will end up.l

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-28/publicis-to-merge-with-omnicom-to-form-biggest-advertising-firm.html