PR Pitches and M&A update: August 2022

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.Here’s the latest of our bonus pod series where I chat to Andrew Bloch about PR Pitches and merger & acquisition trends in the UK PR scene.Andrew is a co-founder and Non-Executive Director at Frank PR and is now Head of PR at the new business consultancy firm AAR. He is also a partner at PCB Partners where he advises on buying and selling marketing services agencies.Don’t forget the early entry deadline for The ESG Awards is coming up on Friday 16th September.Thanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.Here’s a summary of what Andrew and I discussed:3 mins It’s been a bumper month on the PR agency new business front and Andrew talks us through some of the most recent PR account wins including wins for Adhuro, Ketchum, Edelman, The Academy, Boldspace, news of a shake-up of Direct Line’s agency roster, Kindred, Splendid, Tin Man, Wildcard and Spider.9 mins Andrew updates us on the PR M&A market: we’ve seen the larger enterprise values (over $50/100m) deals suffer from uncertainty in the market.11 mins The number of micro deals involving independent PR firms continues to increase with organisations continuing to want to broaden their offer.12 mins Andrew M&A acquisition update: including Splendid’s acquisition of Riot, Enero and Hotwire’s continued buying spree, Square in the Air and CTP launch of a JV called Chalk+Dog, another Selby Anderson acquisition and PMLR’s acquisition of Health Comms Consultants.20 mins “You need scale to succeed…to generate organic growth but also as a protectionist measure.”