Finsbury
Finsbury is a PR company owned by WPP with clients that include Cable & Wireless, the HMV Media Group, Abbey National, Trinity Mirror and Lloyds TSB. They have 28 clients in the FTSE 100/Euro 300 list of top UK/Euro companies and they provide PR for more than 10% of the top 200 UK companies. They paid more than £5,000 to the Labour Party for 'tickets for dinners' in 1999-2000. Finsbury is 75% owned by Roland Rudd, who made £41 million by selling the company to WPP in May 2001. Another two Directors, Rupert Younger and James Murgatroyd, will share another £14 million between them from the sale.
Roland Rudd is the son of a Stockbroker. He was President of the Union at Oxford University and a former journalist with the Independent, Sunday Correspondent and the Financial Times. He is a friend of Peter Mandelson, spending time during the 2001 election campaign to help him at his Hartlepool constituency. Rupert Younger is the nephew of Viscount George Younger (Chairman of the Bank of Scotland). James Murgatroyd is a former banker with Dean Witter.
Contents
Staff
Described as 'Partners' on the Finsbury Website
- Faeth Birch
- Morgan Bone
- Rory Chisholm
- Rollo Head
- James Leviton
- James Murgatroyd
- Edward Orlebar
- Roland Rudd
- Rupert Younger
Clients
Euro 300 / FTSE 100
- Autostrada SpA
- Banca Intesa Spa
- Boots plc
- BPB plc
- British Land Company plc
- British Sky Broadcasting plc
- Cable & Wireless plc
- Centrica plc
- CRH plc
- Daily Mail and General Trust plc
- Edison SpA
- Enel SpA
- Eni SpA
- Friends Provident Plc
- GUS plc
- International Power plc
- J Sainsbury plc
- Lloyds TSB Group plc
- Man Group plc
- Northern Rock plc
- Reed Elsevier plc
- Royal & SunAlliance plc
- Royal Dutch Shell plc
- Standard Chartered plc
- Terna SpA
- Vodafone Group Plc
- WPP
- Yell PLC
FTSE 250
- Bradford & Bingley plc
- Filtrona plc
- GCap Media PLC
- Great Portland Estates plc
- Henderson Group plc
- Inmarsat plc
- Jardine Lloyd Thompson plc
- John Laing plc
- Kazakhmys PLC
- Kesa Electricals plc
- London Stock Exchange plc
- Mitchells & Butlers plc
- Morgan Crucible plc
- Northumbrian Water Group plc
- Pendragon Plc
- Pennon Group plc
- Persimmon plc
- Pilkington plc
- SIG plc
- Tomkins plc
- Trinity Mirror plc
- Vedanta Resources plc
- Virgin Mobile Holdings (UK)
Others
- Barclays Capital
- Basic Element
- Beazley Group plc
- BNFL
- C&C Group
- Coral Eurobet
- Electra Partners Europe
- Equitable Life
- Europa Capital
- General Electric Co
- Genesis Investment Managers
- GLG Partners
- Huveaux PLC
- KKR
- Landsbanki
- Ofgem
- Paypoint plc
- Permira
- Premiere
- RDF Media Company plc
- Roland Berger
- RTL Group
- Senior plc
- Travelodge
Selected Transactions
- Boots/Alliance Unichem
- Boots/BHI
- BPB/St Gobain
- British Land/Pillar
- Bunzl/Filtrona
- C&W/Energis
- Capital Radio/GWR Group
- Cendant Demerger
- Fortune Brands/Pernod Ricard/Allied Domecq
- Inmarsat IPO
- Kazakhmys IPO
- LSE Defence
- Manchester United/Glazier
- Permira/KKR/SBS
- Pilkington/NSG
- Somerfield/Violet
- Telenet IPO
- Terna
- VNU/IMS
- Vodafone/Bharti Tele-Venture
- Vodafone/Sverige
references
- Mark Townsend and Antony Barnett PR firm hired to sell top-up fees Labour rebels outraged at 'abuse' of taxpayers' money as university vice-chancellors acquire services of Mandelson's millionaire friend, Sunday January 18, 2004, The Observer
- Antony Barnett and Jamie Doward The PR tycoon, a private dinner and PM's meeting with Euro lobby group Businessmen lobbying for unlimited immigration from Romania and Bulgaria met the Prime Minister at an exclusive London home, Sunday September 17, 2006, The Observer
