IT’s a company whose name is scarcely known outside the self-obsessed world of advertising and marketing. It is worth less than £40m. Last year, it lost money.
But, somehow, it has contrived to become the focal point for a magnificently public spat between two veterans of the media scene. Roger Parry, the man whose ambitions stretched as far as wanting to take control of ITV, finds himself at loggerheads with Kelvin MacKenzie, the former Sun editor who has reinvented himself as a serial media-industry entrepreneur.
And the reason for their falling-out? Because Parry has landed the job of executive chairman at Media Square something that MacKenzie doesn’t like one little bit.
Media Square? No, it’s not a familiar name. But it calls itself “the fifth-largest UK-based quoted marketing company” a claim that is no doubt honest and truthful as well as legal and decent.
Others would suggest a rather less kind description: Media Square is a peculiar rag-bag of nearly two dozen businesses under the catch-all umbrella of marketing services. It is involved in direct marketing, brand strategy, public relations, market research and a host of other activities, including, apparently, “business intelligence systems, integrated architecture, portals and custom applications”. Whatever that means.
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In rather simpler terms, Media Square is a shambles particularly as it has struggled to get to grips with a clutch of businesses bought from Huntsworth in late 2005. And last week Parry was brought in to become Media Square’s executive chairman. His brief: to sift through the constituent parts of Media Square, decide which ones are worth backing and by implication discard the rest.
MacKenzie, 60, has a particular interest. He was nonexecutive chairman of Media Square for 15 months, leaving at the end of March. He said he holds “around 1%” of the company.
According to public records, his stake was equivalent to 0.25% last March when he left the firm worth just £94,000 at Media Square’s current lowly share price, less than half the level two years ago.
But MacKenzie has since added to it bringing his holding to about the 1% mark valued at £380,000 or so. It’s useful money, certainly, but scarcely life and death for a man who has made millions since he stepped down as editor of Britain’s biggest-selling daily paper.
So why has he chosen to go public with an attack on Parry’s appointment? MacKenzie said: “Listen, I have no animus towards the man. But in a situation like this, you need someone who can work 12 hours a day, five or six days a week for the next two or three years while this is sorted out. And, given his other commitments, he just can’t do that.
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Parry a one-time BBC journalist who made his name running the international arm of the advertising and entertainment giant Clear Channel and a man who is always happy to burnish his public image lists 10 other directorships. But most of those are for investment companies and a charity, he said.
Parry describes only four at the publisher Future, the regional newspaper group Johnston Press, the pollster YouGov and the messaging and ringtones company Mobile Streams as “real” directorships. “And all of these companies want me to stay very nonexecutive,” he said this weekend.
Parry, 54, reckons that, in total, these jobs oblige him to attend 25 meetings a year. Chairing eight meetings at Johnston brought him £100,000. His chairmanship of Future earned a further £200,000 double the usual amount because he took on some extra work besides chairing six meetings.
Parry is being paid a basic £225,000 this year for his work at Media Square plus a further £425,000 as long as he stays with the company for a further two years. MacKenzie said: “The idea that Roger will find enough time in his diary to devote himself full-time in return for his handsome remuneration . . . is simply preposterous.”
He wants Parry either to give up his other directorships to concentrate single-mindedly on Media Square or step back to become nonexecutive chairman and appoint a chief executive within two months. MacKenzie plans to speak to other Media Square shareholders this week.
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Said MacKenzie: “This isn’t world war three. But this company needs someone to work solely on sorting it out. It isn’t a job where you can go in, blow a few air kisses at the finance department and then go home.”
Parry describes MacKenzie’s activities as no more than a publicity stunt. MacKenzie denies this: “I don’t need to seek publicity,” he said. “If I wanted publicity, I’d do a series of The Apprentice.”
Both men insist that there’s nothing personal about their disagreement. Parry said: “Kelvin’s great company. If I were to be stranded on a desert island, I’d take him along as my luxury just for his entertainment value.
“But I don’t think Kelvin really understands how business works. It’s not about shouting at people at board meetings. I’ll be in work from 7.30 in the morning to 7.30 at night.”
His first move, expected this week, will be to merge three of Media Square’s businesses into one.
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And, strikingly, Parry’s plans aren’t a million miles from what MacKenzie wants. Parry intends to recruit a chief executive but doesn’t think that can be done before next summer at the earliest. Parry would then move to a nonexecutive role on £90,000 a year.
Parry insists that he will not budge. He plans to hold on to his other jobs. And he plans to remain in his executive role at Media Square for as long as necessary.
Those who have sat on boards that Parry has chaired say he is an excellent chairman. “I have never had a better chairman,” said one. But someone who worked with him at Clear Channel described him as “a talker rather than a doer. He’s not a details man. But he’s one of those people who seems to know everyone a great networker”.
Being a great networker will not be enough to get MacKenzie off his back.
An industry figure who knows both men said: “Let’s face it, both Kelvin and Roger are colourful characters. They both have huge egos. Is it any wonder they’re falling out?”