Preferably not: WPP. (WPP Group)

Economist (US), The, June, 1992

WPP Group PLC head Martin Sorrel's debt restructuring proposals have angered WPP's most powerful shareholders, the holders of convertible preference shares issued in 1989. WPP's failure to make debt payments in Apr and Oct 1991 has allowed these stockholders to gain 78% voting rights under a preference clause.

IT SEEMED a good idea at the time. In 1989 Martin Sorrell, rushing to turn his WPP Group into the world's biggest marketing-services conglomerate, paid $864m in a hostile takeover of Ogilvy & Mather, a New York-based advertising agency. That was not the good idea: most analysts reckoned the price was much too high. What did look like a good idea was Mr Sorrell's plan to help pay for the acquisition by issuing 214m convertible preference-shares. WPP got $347m in...

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