Hasta La Creative!

In the past year alone, Peter Clark and Edmond Huot have gone on a shopping spree for CHR Group, a tiny but ambitious ad agency holding company that they’re building from the ground up. Chicago private equity firm Lake Capital bought the larger, U.K.-based Engine Group to build a global network of agencies under the Engine name. And four-year-old Project Worldwide added Burger King creative shop Pitch to its growing roster of shops.

A surge of small and mid-sized agency holding companies is being fueled by a mix of ingredients. A healthier economy is providing more buyers and sellers, for one thing, while marketers are demanding more integrated services and close agency attention.

“There’s quite a big void in the middle between the independents and the massive networks,” said Keith Hunt, managing partner at M&A consultancy Results International. “In the U.S., one would have expected to see more of these.”

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