• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, November 2, 2014

Publicis Groupe is said to be in talks with Sapient, the management consultant firm that owns digital marketing and advertising shop SapientNitro. A deal may be announced as early as Monday, according to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news Sunday.

Word of the possible deal comes several months after the collapse of the $35 billion Publicis-Omnicom merger. Publicis Groupe CEO Maurice Levy has partly blamed the distractions of that proposed deal, in the works for nearly a year, for the Group’s recent weak financial results. The company posted third-quarter organic revenue growth of just 1%, well below the other major ad-marketing holding companies.

But during a recent call with analysts and investors Levy also blamed the company's poor performance on other factors. "The issues were a sharp decline in analog, the end of one-off contracts, the end of the Motorola business and the slow recovering of emerging Europe," he said on the call. "To be honest, we have been too focused on our [proposed merger] project and we are paying the price for that. It is now the past."

Levy added: "The speed of digital and technology innovation had not fully been taken into account and impacted our performance."  Digital has been and continues to be a top priority for the company. It has grown its digital offering over the years with acquisitions such as Digitas, Razorfish and LBi, among others. Digital now accounts for 41.6% of Publicis Groupe’s total revenue, up from 37.6% a year ago. "This is where the market is going and generating growth," said Levy said on the call with analysts in October.

Publicis has scheduled a November 7 webcast to present an updated strategic plan looking forward to 2018.

Sapient bought digital agency Nitro Group in 2009 for $50 million and rebranded the agency SapientNitro (which was named OMMA’s 2014 Creative Agency of the Year). Last year the company acquired “cross-channel” marketing analytics firm (m)phasize.

According to the Journal’s report today, Sapient has a current market capitalization of $2.5 billion. Revenues last year were up 12% to $1.26 billion.

Reps at Publicis and Sapient could not be immediately reached for comment.