Dive Brief:
- Stagwell Group, an investment firm founded by Mark Penn, the former WPP and Microsoft executive, made its third deal since October with a majority stake in New York-based ad agency Code and Theory.
- Last year Stagwell bought National Research Group from Nielsen, and SKDKnickerbocker, a PR and political consulting firm.
- The Code and Theory majority stake acquisition fits into Penn’s initial strategy as a digital advertiser that Penn described to the Wall Street Journal as "a high growth agency with great founders, exhibiting a great combination of creativity and engineering."
Dive Insight:
Penn announced the formation of Stagwell and that he was leaving Microsoft last June. At the time he told the Wall Street Journal, “There’s a lot of room for new blood in the advertising and marketing industry. Every client is looking for how to combine good advertising creative with good data analytics. I don’t think they’re getting those answers from the companies they’ve got, even if they’ve got some of the biggest companies in the world.”
Penn had previously told Ad Age his goal was to build a small holding company focused on advertising, research, data analytics, PR and digital marketing companies. The firm, which last summer had raised $250 million, has backing former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. At launch, it was said that through leveraging the company had the ability to make up to $750 million in acquisitions.
Terms of the deal haven’t been disclosed, though Code and Theory will operate independently within Stagwell. Clients Code and Theory has worked with include Dr. Pepper, Maybelline New York and Burger King.