• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, March 17, 2022

Omnicom confirmed Thursday morning that it is withdrawing from Russia and working with its local partners to dispose of all of its holdings in the country. 

The company is the fourth major ad group this week to announce plans to exit Russia due to the country’s unprovoked attack of Ukraine. 

Earlier this week, Interpublic, Publicis Groupe and Dentsu confirmed they were exiting the country. The groups work with local partners and arrangements are being made to transfer assets to those partners in a bid to keep the entities operational without holding group involvement so that local staff can continue to hold jobs. In some cases those partnerships have been in place for decades. 

On March 4 WPP announced that it was discontinuing operations in Russia, the first major ad group to disclose such plans, citing the invasion. WPP acted a day after consultant Accenture, parent of digital agency Accenture Interactive, announced it was discontinuing operations there. 

Havas works in the country via a partnership with local company ADV and has said it is in talks on an asset transfer to the partner. 

Omnicom issued a statement: 

“We can confirm that Omnicom is withdrawing from Russia and working with local partners to dispose of all of our investment positions.  

We have been planning an orderly process to ensure continuity of services for clients and to provide a future for our Russian colleagues some who have been with Omnicom for decades. We expect to finalize details shortly. 

As the violence and humanitarian crisis continues in Ukraine our number one priority remains the safety and well-being of our more than 200 colleagues and their families there. We are in constant contact with our Ukrainian agency leaders and supporting our people with much needed humanitarian assistance, including transportation, accommodations, visa and working papers, translation services, relocation support, supplies and medical support.”