Brunswick Group

Brunswick Group is an international PR firm, with almost a third of the FTSE 100 top firms as clients, they are the biggest financial communications consultancy in the UK. They paid more than £5,000 to the Labour Party for 'tickets for dinners' in 1999-2000 and gave £9,000 in August 2001. The company also donated the services of an employee to the Government to help work on the Financial Services and Markets Bill - legislation which will regulate business in the City and which would provide invaluable information to Brunswick s clients.

The Brunswick Group was founded in 1987. They advise on media and investor relations, mergers and acquisitions, competition and regulatory issues, crisis management, international communications and corporate campaigns. Although Brunswick are reluctant to advertise client details, they represent firms including BT, Marks & Spencer and the Bank of Scotland and range from some of the world s biggest companies, retained on an international mandate, to small and unquoted businesses. They have offices in London, New York, Germany and Johannesburg.

Founder Alan Parker (son of former British Rail chairman Sir Peter Parker) owns 88% of Brunswick's Channel Islands holding company, Wynnstay, giving him control of the agency and a stake in the company worth an estimated £114m. Parker's personal assets are thought to be around £6m. In 2001, Parker recruited Bill Clinton's former aide, James Rubin, to Brunswick's political affairs unit.

Later the firm's arts events subsidiary was joined by the former partner of Hobsbawm Macaulay Communications and wife of Gordon Brown, Sarah Macaulay. Sarah Macaulay is ‘the fashionably reserved co-founder of Hobsbawm Macaulay Communications’. She marketed Emily's List, the campaign to increase the number of women MPs.

Staff

Brunswick employs over 320 staff, including 40 partners. They advise on media and investor relations, mergers and acquisitions, competition and regulatory issues, crisis management, international communications and corporate campaigns.

Business activities in the company's language:

• Ongoing IR & PR: maintaining and increasing trust and understanding among investors, analysts and media commentators
• Financial calendar: we will ensure your results announcements are correctly positioned and managed
• IPOs & financings: launching companies in the public markets and creating the communications infrastructure for a new level of corporate disclosure
• Crisis & litigation: defending a company's integrity, business practices and assets, and developing an effective path to weather the storm
• Corporate transactions: maximising support for transactions, including M&A
• Restructurings: ensuring that communications maximizes a company's future viability
• Regulatory & public affairs: utilising communications to encourage support from regulatory agencies and governmental opinion formers
• At 1st of May 2005 Brunswick Group started a trade union like support campaign for EICTA's project Patents4Innovation

History

Brunswick was founded in 1987 by Alan Parker, the son of former British Rail chairman Sir Peter Parker. He owns 88% of Brunswick's Channel Islands holding company, Wynnstay, a stake estimated to be worth approximately £114m. [1]

In 2001, Parker recruited Bill Clinton's former aide, James Rubin, to Brunswick's political affairs unit.

Clients

In July 2002 the Wall Street Journal reported that Martha Stewart had hired the Brunswick Group to massage her image in the wake of allegations that she profited from insider trading. [2]

In March 2004, the controversy over the exaggeration of the oil and gas reserves of Shell Oil resulted in the resignation of the then chairman, Philip Watts, and Walter van de Vijver, who was responsible for exploration and production. In an attempt to manage the crisis Shell hired the Brunswick Group to help it manage the crisis. "Brunswick has recently come on board, but we don't really say much more about what they do," Corrigan told PR Week. [3]

Contact details

16 Licoln's Inn Fields
London WC2A 3ED
UK
Phone: 44 20 7404 5959
Fax: 44 20 7831 2823
Web: http://www.brunswickgroup.com

External links

• Center for Media and Democracy, Former Government Flacks Find Corporate PR Path, Spin of the Day, July 29, 2003.
• Tom Acitelli, "Royal Dutch/Shell enlists Brunswick amid audit, exits", PR Week, April 26, 2004. (Sub req'd)
• "Brunswick Adds H&K's Buckley, Expanding U.S. Offering", 'Holmes Report, April 26, 2001.
• 'Former Albright Aide Rubin Joins Brunswick", Holmes Report, May 05, 2001.
• "Brunswick Scrambles to Deal with Security Lapse", Holmes Report, May 17, 2001.
• "Congressional Staffer Joins Brunswick in D.C.", Holmes Report, April 21, 2003.
• Tom Williams, "Brunswick's Williams to lead 3 flotation charge", PR Week, July 15, 2005. (Sub req'd).
• "City & Corporate: Serco tries to lose PFI label", PR Week, July 22, 2005. (Sub req'd).
• Tom Williams, "Brunswick boosts Hutchison profile", PR Week, August 12, 2005. (Sub req'd).
• "Brunswick boosts M&A arm with trio", PR Week, September 16, 2005. (Sub req'd).