February 2003 Cordiant, paying the price for over-expansion during the dotcom boom, admits it must redraft loan agreements and puts three subsidiaries up for sale.<\/p>\n
April 2003 Drinks group Allied Domecq cancels a crucial contract with the group’s Bates advertising agency. Cordiant reveals it has received takeover approaches as it drifts perilously close to administration.<\/p>\n
May 2003 Cordiant wins a stay of execution after lenders agree to support it until the middle of July. It agrees to sell Australian agency George Patterson Bates for pounds 30m.<\/p>\n
June 1 2003 WPP says it is examining Cordiant’s books with a view to making a bid.<\/p>\n
June 4 2003 City raider UK Active Value, owner of a 14% stake in Cordiant, backs a plan drafted by investment bank WestLB to take over and install former Jazz FM boss Richard Wheatly as chief executive.<\/p>\n
June 14-16 French advertising group Publicis teams up with US hedge fund Cerberus Capital Management to bid pounds 250m for Cordiant. It appears to have won the battle during a frantic weekend of negotiations and plans to put the company into administration before sharing out the assets. But WPP trumps the offer late on Sunday night.<\/p>\n
June 19 WPP agrees to buy Cordiant’s pounds 262m debt and pay shareholders pounds 10m.<\/p>\n
June 25 Active Value takes its stake to 25%, enough to vote down WPP’s bid, and requisitions an extraordinary general meeting calling for the removal of Cordiant’s chairman, chief executive and chief financial officer.<\/p>\n
July 2 Nahed Ojjeh, a Paris-based chess promoter and billionairess, buys a 2% stake in Cordiant.<\/p>\n
July 8 Mrs Ojjeh admits her stake has increased to 10%, but she breaks takeover panel rules after failing to disclose her dealings in a timely manner.<\/p>\n
July 11 The plot thickens as Publicis admits talks with Active Value.<\/p>\n
July 14 Active Value’s plan to force a change of control at Cordiant and do a side deal with Publicis over Cordiant’s 25% stake in media buying agency Zenith Optimedia is scuppered when the French group rejects a deal.<\/p>\n
July 16 Cordiant’s shares are de-listed but Active Value insists it is “still exploring a number of options”.<\/p>\n
July 23 WPP gains control of Cordiant, but Active Value’s egm proposal goes through.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
February 2003 Cordiant, paying the price for over-expansion during the dotcom boom, admits it must redraft loan agreements and puts three subsidiaries up for sale. April 2003 Drinks group Allied Domecq cancels a crucial contract with the group’s Bates advertising […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hedgeco-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}