• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, July 13, 2005

The creeping takeover by corporate raider Vincent Bollore raises big questions about the future role of media in Paris-based agency holding company Havas. On Tuesday, Bollore was officially named chairman of the Havas board, solidifying his control over the company, which he now owns 22 percent of. Philippe Wahl, an outsider who had been general manager of France's Caisse d'Epargne savings bank, was named CEO, replacing Richard Colker as interim chief, who will remain on the board. But it was Bollore's decision to nominate Fernando Rodes, CEO of Havas' MPG media unit, as one of three new vice chairmen of Havas that may be most telling about his plans for media services.

Havas' media network remains the smallest and weakest of the major agency holding companies and has failed to grow even as the other majors have expanded organically or through acquisitions. The elevation of Rodes seems to indicate that Bollore sees MPG as a key asset, and Rodes as a key player in the future designs of Havas. And that is likely to occur either through big account wins, or a merger or acquisition.

Bollore has indicated plans to shift Havas' strategy from defense to offense, and that he might further invest in the company in an effort to expand its operations. One likely candidate is Aegis Group, the U.K.-based agency holding company that is the purest media play of the majors. Although Aegis is not officially in play, it would seem to be a prized asset for any operation serious in growing its media base. Unlike the majors like Havas, Interpublic, Omnicom, Publicis and WPP Group, Aegis is not mired by creative and full-serve agency legacies and has cobbled together a network of high-growth marketing services operations, mainly media planning, buying, as well as an impressive interactive agency network (Isobar) and one of the world's largest outdoor media companies (Posterscope). It also has important media and marketing research operations (Synovate) that would make it a likely target for a company looking to expand in the area of marketing intelligence.

Currently, WPP has the biggest research play of the major holding companies, and WPP chief Martin Sorrell is known to be highly acquisitive and has goals of supplanting Omnicom as the world's largest advertising company. WPP also presumably would like to establish a bigger relationship with a major Aegis media client, Procter & Gamble, which ironically had been an account of MediaCom's before WPP acquired that unit as part of its takeover of Grey Worldwide last year.

The P&G business would also make Aegis a plumb acquisition for Omnicom, and Havas, but would likely represent a conflict for Publicis, which already handles the lion's share of P&G's media through Starcom MediaVest Group. That's a conflict because P&G is loath to consolidate all of its business at a single agency. Although Aegis is not officially in play, a number of observers believe it's currently undervalued, making it ripe for a takeover.

Aegis is the only one of the majors that does not trade on U.S. stock exchanges, and its share prices has been mired in the $1.75 range for months. Its current market capitalization is about $1.98 billion. Since know pure-play media agency network of its size has ever gone into play, it's difficult to know what kind of multiple it would reap, but the active trading among Aegis institutional investors, which have been expanding their holdings, may indicate that they see some significant upside, either through organic growth, or some other play.