Conclusion

Maurice Saatchi was ousted from the flagship company he had co-founded with his brother in a protracted boardroom struggle, which erupted in the weeks before Christmas of 1994 and ran on into the New Year. The battle between the rival factions was fought out in the full glare of the media. The outcome was Maurice Saatchi’s departure. This was his very public letter of resignation:

To everyone at Saatchi and Saatchi

For twenty-five years I have had the privilege of working with you to create and build Saatchi … Saatchi.

Throughout those years, your loyalty to the company in both good and hard times made me feel uniquely blessed.

The letters so many of you have sent me during the past week, urging me to stay as chairman of Saatchi … Saatchi Advertising, have been inspiring. I will always treasure them.

So, it is with sadness that I must tell you that I cannot accept the offer of that position, and instead must sever my links with the company which we have built together.

You deserve to know the reasons:

Saatchi … Saatchi has been taken over. No bid for the company has been announced. No offer has been made. No premium has been paid. No shareholder vote has been taken. But, make no mistake, Saatchi and Saatchi is under new control.

The new ‘owners’ – a group of shareholders owning around 30 per cent of the shares – have found a simple, if crude, method of controlling the company.

By threatening the directors with an extraordinary general meeting – at which they could outvote others – they have given the directors their orders: ‘Take your chairman into a corner and shoot him quickly – we don’t want the fuss of a public trial.’

I have watched in dismay as some of our longest client relationships have been jeopardised, the wishes of key clients ignored, and the loss of their business assessed as ‘a price worth paying’.

I have listened in despair as the views of leading executives of this company were dismissed as ‘irritating’ and ‘irrelevant’. And, for the first time in 25 years, found myself in an advertising company where the term ‘advertising man’ was being used as an insult.

I have observed how, after seeing the value of their shares rise by 17 per cent since spring against a 2 per cent fall for the FTSE 100 index, this shareholder group nevertheless went ahead and plunged the company into a period of uncertainty and instability…. How could I help to strengthen our relationships with our clients when, in the perverse logic of our new ‘owners’, loyal client relationships are not understood to be the company’s greatest asset?

How could I reassure you of your critical importance to the company, when the views of so many of the most respected among you have been ruthlessly brushed aside?

This enforced parting grieves me deeply. Yet I look forward to 1995 with great anticipation. Because, as we have always believed at Saatchi … Saatchi … Nothing is Impossible.

With every good wish,

Maurice Saatchi,

3rd January, 1995.

The narrative of Maurice Saatchi’s fall mixed the classic motifs of financial high drama with the clash of male egos which were such a recurrent feature of the advertising industry in the 1980s. As Campaign saw it, ‘Money, power, revenge and egomania’ were the ingredients which made the story compelling. ¹ Longstanding dissatisfaction with the company’s management organisation and financial performance among a group of influential shareholders came to a head at an eight-hour meeting on 16 December. Flexing their collective muscle, the dissident faction was led by David Scott, Saatchi’s chief executive, and David Herro of Harris Associates, the Chicago-based investment group. Claiming to speak for as many as one-third of disgruntled investors, the duo forced Maurice Saatchi’s climbdown as company chairman. Adding insult to injury, Saatchi was given until the New Year to decide whether to remain as honorary president of a Saatchi subsidiary. Despite an emotional campaign mounted by employees to persuade him to stay, Maurice dismissed the offer. He returned from Christmas holidays spent in Thailand, to his spiritual home in London’s Charlotte Street, spoiling for a fight. Closeting himself in his former office, on the top floor of the company’s headquarters, he faxed his valedictory letter to all staff throughout Europe and America. ²