Ad giants changed mind on merge deal

Publicis and Omnicom are two of the world’s largest advertising firms. Last year they announced that a merger was on the way as the two companies planned to create the biggest advertisement firm in the world, worth $35.1 billion.

But those plans have crumbled, the firms blaming certain obstacles that ‘remained to be overcome’ and the uncertainty resulted from the slow pace of the merger process.

The deal was thus terminated but with no break-off fee.

Omnicom's chief executive John Wren, together with Publicis CEO Maurice Levy said in a joint statement that: ‘The challenges that still remained to be overcome, in addition to the slow pace of progress, created a level of uncertainty detrimental to the interests of both groups and their employees, clients and shareholders.’

The deal was supposed to help the firms cope with the recent-years advertisement changes caused by social media platforms like Facebook and the would have saved $500 million by joining resources.

One impediment of the merge could be, according to critics, that the two firms represent rival companies and a merger would spark a conflict of interests.