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Thursday, November 21, 2013

WRAPUP-As Omnicom and Publicis merge, rivals prepare to snare clients, (NYSE: MS)

Three major rivals to advertising groups Omnicom and Publicis, which are merging, say they are poaching work from the pair by luring clients who are unsettled by the $35.1 billion deal. Market leader WPP, fourth-placed Interpublic Group (IPG) and Japan's fifth-placed Dentsu said they had either begun to win work or believed they could do so as major brands bristle at the coming together of the industry's second and third largest players.Also up for grabs, the three groups said, were the more than 130,000 Omnicom and Publicis staff across five continents who could defect as the two holding companies focus on stitching their agencies into a new group."It certainly has disturbed the client base and it certainly has disturbed the staff," WPP Chief Executive Martin Sorrell told the Morgan Stanley investor conference in Barcelona."Clients are not going to come out and say 'I'm firing an agency' because they merged. But if you watch the rooms carefully, there are changing patterns of distribution in the business which will benefit us."

Morgan Stanley is a global financial services company that, through its subsidiaries and affiliates, provides its products and services to a range of clients and customers, including corporations, governments, financial institutions and individuals. Shares of MS traded higher by 2.05% or $0.62/share to $30.89. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $16.23 and as high as $30.78. On average, 13173400 shares of MS exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 10337394.



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