 Mark Penn |
Stagwell Group chief Mark Penn is negotiating to assume the helm of MDC Partners and take an investment stake in the troubled ad/PR firm, according to the Wall Street Journal.
MDC, which faces a proxy fight at its June 4 shareholder meeting, has been conducting a strategic review.
The firm, which is the parent of Hunter, Allison+Partners, KWT Global and Sloane & Co., lost $36.2M during the nine-month ended September period on $1.1B in revenues.
It has long-term debt of $987M.
MDC CEO Scott Kauffman announced in September that he plans to step down once a successor is named.
Penn, former pollster for Bill and Hillary Clinton, ex-Burson Marsteller CEO and Microsoft chief strategy officer, had earlier tried to buy MDC with Apollo Global Management, according to the WSJ.
Stagwell's holdings include Finn Partners and SDKKnickerbocker.
WPP CEO Mark Read reported like-for-like revenues dropped 2.7 percent to $3.3B in Q1 due to the challenging business environment.
Interpublic suffered a $85.4M Q1 loss as net revenues declined 8.5 percent to $2B. It earned $110.4M in the year-ago period.
Omnicom CEO John Wren reported a 1.6 percent growth in Q1 revenues to $3.7B and a 5.5 percent dip in operating profit to $462.7M.
Publicis Groupe posted 9.4 percent growth in Q1 net revenues to $4B as the French firm enjoyed a record new business run, according to CEO Arthur Sadoun. It was up 4.9 percent organically. 
Donald Trump has set the stage for unloading his $2.3B stake in Trump Media & Technology Group, according to the company’s April 1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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