Scholz & Friends is once again up for sale
And yet another German agency chain is to be sold. The financial investor Cognetas, majority shareholder of the Scholz & Friends holding company Commarco with 69 percent of the shares, is to offer to buy the company.
Cognetas has commissioned the investment bank Rothschild with the project. This was reported by the news agency Reuters according to New-business.de, but without official confirmation. The information is nevertheless very plausible, as at the end of last year there were already extensive negotiations with a large network agency regarding the sale of Commarco. In addition, the recent winning of Opel's European budget by Scholz & Friends significantly improves Cognetas' chances of getting a good price.
The global agency holding companies Omnicom, WPP and Interpublic are considered to be interested buyers. However, a purely financial investor could also show interest in the purchase Martin Sorrell, the CEO of WPP, has repeatedly expressed interest in takeovers in Germany at industry events, according to Faz.net. Alongside Serviceplan, Commarco is the largest agency in Germany that does not belong to one of the international advertising networks. Its fee-based turnover amounted to 126 million euros in 2009.
