UK staff braced for redundancies at Publicis

by Noel Bussey Campaign 15-May-08, 07:00

LONDON - Publicis London has started a consultation with staff about future roles within the agency that could lead to a number of redundancies.

The agency claims that the move has been prompted by its recent retention of HP’s £100 million EMEA direct marketing business.

However, the news comes just three weeks after it lost £100 million worth of HP above-the-line business to BBDO, which insiders speculate was worth millions of pounds in revenue to the London office and was “by far its biggest account”.

Richard Pinder, the chief operating officer of the Publicis Groupe, said the London office had not yet worked out what the full effect of the above-the-line loss would be, but said: “There may be a few redundancies because of it.”

He added: “When we won the below-the-line account, we agreed to create a new model on how we would work with the business. British law states that if you are going to move a certain number of people abroad, then you have to hold a consultation such as this one.”