Mergers of equals were largely dead long before ad giant Omnicom Group Inc struck its ill-fated $35 billion deal with rival Publicis Groupe SA .That didn't stop Publicis Chief Executive Officer Maurice Levy and Omnicom's John Wren from trying to sell the deal as just that to investors and employees, and won't stop other executives in the future, bankers and lawyers said.In fact, the Omnicom-Publicis deal's undoing may have been that how close it came to merging two equal companies - they negotiated terms such as 50-50 ownership for the two sets of shareholders with no premium paid to either, a co-CEO situation with Levy and Wren and equal board representation.It seemed so harmonious in Paris in July, when Wren and Levy toasted each other with Champagne under the Arc de Triomphe and posed for photographs in each other's embrace. Since then, the future co-CEOs bickered over who would fill key jobs such as chief financial officer,, what would happen to Levy after Wren took over as sole CEO, and over such issues as the company's tax structure while combining the different cultures of a U.S. and a French company.
Omnicom Group Inc. (Omnicom) is a holding company, providing professional services to clients through multiple agencies. Shares of OMC fell by 0.68% or $-0.46/share to $67.28. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $59.70 and as high as $76.87. On average, 1891310 shares of OMC exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 3073261.
Source
