Marketing Services Financial Intelligence

Senior board members of the defunct Media Square and its bankers have emerged as part owners of the company that acquired the business from the administrators whereas all the outside ordinary shareholders have lost their entire investment .

A publication edited by one of the marketing industry’s senior financial commentators has questioned whether directors of insolvent public company Media Square should have been allowed to stage a buyout without creditor or shareholder approval.

Mediacom has come to the rescue of cash strapped Brilliant Media Group by acquiring the business after a continuing financial crisis followed the loss of major clients DFS and Asda in March this year.

Media Square is seeking to recover “a minimum” of £760,000 from recently revamped Porta Communications and its chief executive David Wright, alleging that Wright attempted to effect an unlawful conspiracy

Annual "Private Plums" review of privately owned marketing agencies shows revenue growth has evaporated, profit margins and productivity remain under pressure, and working capital is under increased strain, but most still earned a profit in 2010.

Media Square and Progressive Digital Media Group have scored very poorly in the latest annual balance sheet vulnerability tests conducted among UK public companies in the marketing industry and published in Marketing Services Financial Intelligence.

Founders and senior managers of marketing agency Iris Nation Worldwide were able to use £3.3 million of funds awarded under the Bank of Scotland Corporate Entrepreneur Challenge to realise a gain on their shares while the company was losing money.

In the last few days Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation has attempted to dissolve some of its key UK companies and new companies have been formed.

A group of senior executives from The Gate Worldwide specialist advertising network owned by Media Square is understood to have been rebuffed in an attempt to mount a management buyout of their business,

Revenues earned by the largest publicly listed marketing groups around the world recovered by nearly 9% last year, and post-tax profits grew by 23.3%, as agencies began to emerge from the latest recession