Johnny Hornby’s The&Partnership, 49 per cent owned by WPP, is exactly the kind of agile “full service” model that Sorrell seems to have in mind. It may be too based in advertising for his new taste but all these marcoms groups need a strong ad base as Jones acknowledged when he bought a majority of Gravity Road.
As WPP faces break-up calls in the wake of Martin Sorrell's exit, the agency holding company model is under greater scrutiny than at any time since the 1980s...Johnny Hornby, who runs The & Partnership, has gone further and dropped most of his subsidiary brands, including creative shop CHI, this year.
