• October 13, 2005

With the Aegis Group board poised to meet today at a regularly scheduled annual meeting in Chicago, French financier and Havas Chairman Vincent Bollore has once again raised his take in the U.K.-based media services and marketing research conglomerate. In a filing issued Thursday morning, Aegis disclosed Bollore now holds 15.0 percent of Aegis shares, up from 14.7 percent. Insiders, meanwhile, expect that if an earnest offer is going to be made to acquire Aegis it will come today, while the board is in session. At presstime, no explicit offers had been made, but two major players - Publicis Groupe and WPP Group - has expressed interest, have lined up financing and were poring through a "black book" supplied by the Aegis board (MDN October, 12). -- Joe Mandese