By Greg Hazley
Matthew Freud has bought back a majority 50.1% stake in U.K.-based Freud Communications from Publicis, which acquired the firm in 2005, according to a report in the Times of London.
The 25-five-year-old FC employs about 200 staffers and handles blue-chip clients like Best Buy, PepsiCo and Warner Bros.
Freud and then-sister agency MSLGroup picked up lucrative PR duties for the 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic Games in March.
The move is Freud’s second buy-back from an advertising and PR conglomerate. The agency was sold in 1994 to ad agency Abbott Mead Vickers. Freud bought back the firm in 2001 after AMV was acquired by Omnicom.
The Times had reported that, under initial acquisition by Publicis, the French ad/PR conglomerate was required to buy Freud’s remaining shares at a premium on Jan. 1, 2011. The New Year’s Eve deal nixes that obligation.
Terms of the buy-back were not released, although Freud posted a pre-tax profit up 28% to £6.7M in 2010. It was valued between £70M and £80M when Publicis bought the 50.1% stake in 2005.
Media reports out of London over the past few months had speculated that the separation from Publicis was pending as Freud was frustrated with the parent company’s support of expansion plans.
Freud is the son-in-law of News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch. Sigmund Freud is his great-grandfather.
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