No ordinary sale
WPP's heavily-trailed decision to sell Burson marks another watershed for the public relations sector.
Regular Earned First readers will not be especially surprised to learn that WPP has enlisted Goldman Sachs to help sell its public relations unit, effectively consisting of Burson and subsidiary players such as GCI Health and Axicom. The holding group's divestment plan had been heavily trailed for several months, with recent impetus added by a turnaround strategy that suggested a PR consultancy like Burson was no longer a "core business", to use WPP CEO Cindy Rose's terminology.
I cannot help but recall my podcast with Harold Burson in 2013, when the late, great, industry legend openly weighed the benefits and drawbacks of public ownership. Burson-Marsteller was 60 years old by that point, but had only become part of WPP in 2000. After 13 years at WPP, Harold was prescient enough to recognise that the decade ahead would not be kind to PR firms within holding group structures.
