• Bloomberg, Monday, July 29, 2013 2:53 PM

The proposed Publicis-Omnicom deal will unseat WPP CEO Sir Martin Sorrell, "the reigning king of adland," as his agency becomes no. 2 in size, writes two Bloomberg reporters. So while Sorrell's public response included some praise ("It's an extremely bold, brave and surprising move,") he was also careful to raise doubts about how effective the new agency would be, noting that the co-CEO structure is "a formula that rarely works well," and that the merger itself appeared to be "off-strategy" for Publicis CEO Meurice Levy, writes Reuters' Kate Holton.

"Sorrell is one of the ad industry’s biggest consolidators," according to those Bloomberg reporters. So what will he buy next, in light of OmniPub? “Though he could go out and buy a large ad agency, I think he’s more complex and since he’s a fan of data, we could see him go for another market researcher or a Google-like company on a smaller scale,” one analyst tells Bloomberg.

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