WPP Plans to Sell 25% Stake in Chime, Sunday Times Reports

(Bloomberg) -- WPP Plc is selling its 25% stake in sports-marketing agency Chime Communications Ltd. to its partner as Chief Executive Officer Mark Read tries to simplify the world’s largest advertising company, the Sunday Times reported, without saying where it got the information.

The advertising group is expected to sell the stake for 50 million pounds ($63.5 million) to Providence Equity Partners Inc., the newspaper said. Providence and WPP took Chime private in 2015. WPP has raised 1.1 billion pounds since the start of 2018 by selling fringe assets and the Chime sale will go toward paying down debt, the Times said. Earlier this month, WPP sold The Farm Group to Picture Shop.

Read took the helm of WPP last September with a promise to make its stable of over 100 agencies work together to retain key accounts. The network built by his deal-hungry predecessor, Martin Sorrell, was seen as too complex to navigate for clients and prey to internal rivalry that caused overlaps and stymied collaboration. Read said in an interview earlier this month that WPP will consider buying creative agencies that help differentiate its offering. Results in April showed it bleeding business to rivals in North America.

To contact the reporter on this story: Heather Burke in London at hburke2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kristine Aquino at kaquino1@bloomberg.net, James Amott, Srinivasan Sivabalan

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