Aegis vs Bollore stand-off heats up

by Daniel Farey-Jones, Brand Republic 07-Sep-07, 09:00

LONDON - Aegis chief executive Robert Lerwill has rounded on its largest shareholder Vincent Bollore after his criticism of the company's profits performance yesterday.

Bollore, the chairman of Aegis rival Havas, was already unpopular with the Aegis board after building up a hostile 29.9% shareholding in Aegis and calling several extraordinary shareholder meetings in an effort to win two seats on the board for his representatives.

Yesterday newswire Thomson Financial reported Bollore's spokesman as saying his client was disappointed by the 18% decrease in net profit for the first half to £26m.

In response, Lerwill has called Bollore's analysis "strange and uninformed" and highlighted how Aegis' revenue growth is clearly ahead of rival Havas of which Bollore is chairman.

According to the Daily Telegraph, Lerwill claimed Bollore appeared to be judging Aegis purely on its statutory accounts, which were skewed by "accounting technicalities".

"I think, frankly, it's a strange and uninformed quick fire of the statutory numbers which is not in line with the way other investors look at it," Lerwill said.

"On a constant currency basis, Havas had organic revenue growth of 4.4% in the first half and the average of our main competitors was 4.6%. Aegis is 9.6% and clearly ahead."

Lerwill's position was backed by analyst Anthony Larrinaga at SG Media Research, who said: "The company has posted another blistering set of organic revenue growth numbers, which have accelerated into the second quarter."

The stock market also saw no problem with the company's performance, marking Aegis shares up slightly to 130p.

Bollore is expected to call another shareholder meeting to vote on his request for board seats in the coming months, which is again likely to be defeated.

He harbours ambitions of merging the Aegis media buying business with MPG, the media arm of Havas. Such a deal could see Aegis' market research Synovate sold off, possibly to Sir Martin Sorrell's WPP Group.

Comments

Kevin Sugrue - 07/09/2007

This diverting preoccupation can't be helping the Aegis board. Is it impolite to suggest they buy Havas in order to both put an end to this disruption and to grow their business inline with their strategy and culture?