A London-listed marketing conglomerate which sacked three of its top executives this week has been approached about a £200m break-up.
Sky News has learnt that Next 15 has been holding talks about a sale of its ‘legacy’ assets, which include the financial public relations agency MHP, with an unnamed bidder.
That would leave the rump of the busy focused on technology and data-driven client businesses.
One industry source said the prospective buyer was believed to be a private equity firm.
Next 15 issued a profit warning and changed its leadership this week as it disclosed “potential serious misconduct” related to Mach49, a Silicon Valley advisory business it owns.
“As a consequence, Next 15 has terminated the employment of three members of the senior management at Mach49 – Linda Yates, Russ Lampert and Paul Holland. David Charpie, currently co-CEO of Mach49, will become sole CEO with immediate effect,” it said in a stock exchange statement on Wednesday.
“Next 15, on behalf of Mach49, is in the process of reporting the matters to relevant law enforcement agencies.
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“It is too early to know the outcome, but Next 15 will ensure that full co-operation is provided to those agencies.”
The company, which has a market value of about £210m after seeing its stock slump by nearly 75% over the last year.
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It also announced this week that Tim Dyson, its chief executive for over three decades, would retire and be replaced by Sam Knights, the boss of Shopper Media Group, a subsidiary of Next 15.
A person close to Next 15 insisted that any potential break-up would reflect the “simplification strategy” to which it had publicly alluded.
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Next 15 declined to comment on the approach for some of its assets, which are also thought to include the creative agency Elvis and Outcast, another PR firm.
