Publicis, Omnicom Merge to Become World's Biggest Ad Company

The world's second-largest advertising company, New York-based Omnicom, and the third largest, Paris-based Publicis, announced Sunday their plans to merge. Together, they become the world's largest ad-holding company with a value of $35 billion, taking the top spot from London's WPP.

For now, existing Omnicom CEO John Wren and Publicis Groupe CEO Maurice Levy (pictured above) will serve as co-CEOs of the new Publicis Omnicom Group, which employs more than 130,000 people, and together generated $23 billion in revenue last year. Although Omnicom is somewhat bigger than Publicis, shareholders will each receive "approximately 50%" of the new company's equity, both companies said Read more...