Grey Global Group joins WPP

Grey Global Group joins WPP

The Jakarta Post
Jakarta

Another marketing and communications firm is flying under the
wings of the WPP Group, after the global conglomerate, which has
also swallowed up communications firms such as J. Walter Thompson
and Ogilvy & Mather, officially acquired the Grey Global Group
early this week.

"We think that this acquisition will take us to the next level
of development in the marketing and communications industry,"
Grey Global Group chairman and CEO for Asia Pacific Mike Amour
told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

Grey Global Group, the world's seventh largest advertising
company, as ranked by Advertising Age in 2003, is a multinational
marketing and communications firm with 409 offices in 90
countries, serving clients such as consumer goods producer
Procter & Gamble and cellular phone manufacturer Nokia.

Its Indonesian branch was founded in 1976 in partnership with
local firm Rama Perwira Advertising, an in-house advertising
agency of the Modern Group. It later became an official local
agency of Grey Advertising Worldwide -- Grey Indonesia.

Grey Indonesia takes care of the communications strategies for
local and multinational clients in the country, such as
telecommunications firm Indosat, British American Tobacco and
LippoBank.

The Asia Pacific market, including Indonesia, accounts for
some 10 percent of Grey Global's annual revenue, the regional CEO
said.

"WPP shares a similar vision in seeing the Asia Pacific market
as a potential growth area," said Amour, adding that the
companies were committed to increasing their investment in the
region.

The WPP Group, overseeing some 200 companies worldwide, mostly
operating in the marketing and communications industry, bought
Grey Global for $1.3 billion in cash and shares, according to its
website.

WPP, which stands for Wire & Plastics Products, a UK shopping
cart manufacturer, was acquired by Martin Sorrell in 1986 and
developed into a vehicle for acquiring advertising-related
businesses.

"We believe that with this acquisition there are a lot of
complementary skills from the companies under WPP, such as
research, that we can have access to for developing our services
to clients," Amour said. (003)