The non-public fairness agency which owns the Las Iguanas and Cafe Rouge restaurant chains is in talks to purchase a sizeable chunk of Subsequent 15 Group, the London-listed advertising and marketing providers group.
Sky Information has learnt that Epiris, which owns the Large Desk informal eating group and likewise counted auctioneer Bonhams amongst its current investments, has approached Subsequent 15 Group a couple of deal.
Metropolis sources mentioned on Monday that Epiris’s provide included Subsequent 15 subsidiaries MHP Communications, a number one monetary public relations agency.
M Sales space, a shopper advertising and marketing operation; Outcast, one other PR company; and Activate, a business-to-business demand era specialist, are additionally mentioned to kind a part of the deal perimeter.
Ares Administration, the non-public credit score big, is known to have been approached by Epiris to assist finance its provide.
Discussions between Epiris and Subsequent 15 are mentioned to be ongoing, though insiders cautioned {that a} transaction was not sure to materialise.
Sky Information reported the method to Subsequent 15 earlier this yr, though the identification of the bidder was unclear at that stage.
Subsequent 15 is a advertising and marketing providers conglomerate which is successfully a smaller duplicate of business giants akin to Publicis and WPP, the latter of which is engulfed in strategic uncertainty.
Sir Martin Sorrell, the WPP founder who now runs S4 Capital, has additionally been in talks about taking the enterprise non-public.
A sale of its Marker division would depart Subsequent 15 centered on its remaining expertise and data-driven shopper companies.
Subsequent 15 issued a revenue warning and adjusted its management earlier this yr because it disclosed “potential critical misconduct” associated to Mach49, a Silicon Valley advisory enterprise it owns.
Tim Dyson, its chief government for over three many years, has retired and been changed by Sam Knights, the boss of Shopper Media Group, one in every of its subsidiaries.
The group has already been engaged in promoting a variety of items.
Subsequent 15 has a market worth of about £420m after seeing its inventory rally in current months.
The shares, which have been buying and selling at about 404.5p on Monday afternoon, are broadly flat during the last yr.
Epiris, Ares and Subsequent 15 all declined to remark.
