Aegis Q2: 900 Jobs Lost But No Havas Merger; What's Napier's Plan? More Layoffs.
About 900 people left Aegis in its recent round of cost-cutting -- far more than the 780 reported earlier -- the agency holding company said today, and it still isn't enough, according to the Guardian. This chart tells you what's going on at Aegis.
Despite the loss of 900 jobs, Aegis is still only getting €1.21 for every €1 invested in its operating expenses, down from 2007 when it got €1.38.
As most agency operating expenses are salaries, you can expect Aegis to continue sloughing off jobs.
Revenue for the first six months of 2009 was €637 million, an increase, but organic sales were down 10.8 percent. The group made a loss of €0.4 million.
At least one staff member at Aegis is safe in his job: "interim" CEO John Napier. BNET suggested in March that Napier might not actually leave, and that prediction is coming true, according to the FT:
The search for a new chief executive at Aegis Group could run into next year, the marketing services company admitted on Friday.Napier also said he's not in talks with Havas over a long-awaited merger. That also secures Napier's job because if the two companies did merge, one CEO would have to go -- and as Napier already flagged himself as the interim man, it would look odd if it wasn't him:
"There are no talks of any sort nor have there been with Havas, in terms of any sort of tie-up or merger of the two companies," Napier said on a conference call.This is exceptionally strange, because with Aegis and (likely) Havas both in a position of seeing declining or flat efficiencies in their networks, a merger would give them a good excuse to cut out duplicate cost centers (HR etc). But with no merger, Aegis can only do more layoffs to get its efficiencies up again. The Guardian:
Media group Aegis is speeding up its cost-cutting plan, especially in its market research business,
- See previous BNET coverage of Aegis and Havas:
- Has Havas Boss Bollore Hamstrung Himself on Aegis Deal?
- Aegis Puts Up Barrier to Havas Takeover Bid; Has Bollore Missed His Chance?
- Aegis Q4: Not Talking to Havas; Deal Price Getting More Expensive; 780 Jobs Cut
- Alloy, Aegis Top BNET's Network Efficiency Ranking; WPP Slips
- Havas Q4: Flat Revenues Hide Rising Salaries Budget
- Havas-Aegis Deal Starts to Take Shape; GfK Will "Take a Look"
- The Havas-Aegis Deal Worst-Case Scenario
- With CEO Out, Wall Street -- and Havas? -- Plot Demise of Aegis