Interested, anyone?!
Big Firms Gobble Up Lobbying Interests
Consolidation Is the Trend in Influence Industry
Political consultant Joe Trippi became a celebrity by bringing former Vermont governor Howard Dean to the verge of the Democratic presidential nomination. Now Trippi's partners are open to capitalizing on that experience to find a buyer for at least part of their firm.
Steve McMahon of Trippi McMahon & Squier said potential purchasers are doing "quite a bit of tire kicking" of the firm's lobbying affiliate, Issue & Image. "If somebody made us an offer we couldn't refuse," he said, "we wouldn't refuse it."
McMahon is part of a much larger trend. Lobbying and lobbying-related businesses are being gobbled up at such a swift rate that three publicly traded advertising and public relations companies -- WPP Group PLC, Omnicom Group Inc. and Interpublic Group of Companies Inc. -- now own most of the influence industry's best-known names. These global behemoths control firms founded by former president Bill Clinton's pollster, former president Jimmy Carter's spokesman, and the current chairman and immediate past chairman of the Republican Party, among many others.
Insiders say that the consolidation is sure to continue and that other major players will enter the fray. "The business of lobbying is expanding all the time," said Howard Paster, executive vice president of WPP and a pioneer of the corporatization of the District's downtown. "It's only common sense that companies will want to add public affairs businesses to their portfolios."
Some outside observers aren't fans of the movement. "Problems rise exponentially as you get more and more firms under a single roof," said Burdett A. Loomis, a political scientist and lobbying expert at the University of Kansas. "The bigger these merged firms get, the more their service may suffer and the greater the chance for conflicts of interest among their clients."
The mergers are "troubling," said Larry Noble, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. "It raises a lot of questions: Will we see one voice -- or just a very few voices -- addressing various public policy questions? Will these few companies become political powerhouses by controlling a lot of the money in politics?"
Spokesmen for the mega-firms dismiss such complaints. They say the businesses they buy remain autonomous so they don't coordinate their campaign giving and are far enough removed from one another to allow clients who compete to retain different divisions of the same parent company. What's more, they insist, the acquisitions are designed to provide clients with a broad array of services needed in today's campaign-style lobbying efforts.
As a business, lobbying in Washington "is a good growth arena," said Harris Diamond, chief executive of the Weber Shandwick unit of Interpublic Group.
The merger trend began in 1989 with the purchase by WPP of the boutique lobbying firm Timmons & Co., which was one of the first non-lawyer lobbying shops in town. WPP, a British-based communications company, also bought a lobbying firm headed by former Carter aide Anne Wexler.
The pace of acquisitions accelerated at the end of the 1990s. In 1999, Interpublic scooped up Cassidy & Associates, Washington's largest lobbying firm, for a reported $72 million in stock. (Along with Cassidy came Powell Tate, the PR shop run by Carter press secretary Jody Powell.) That same year, Interpublic also bought the lobbying firm started by Haley Barbour, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee and now governor of Mississippi. Omnicom was equally acquisitive, purchasing PR and lobbying firms run by prominent Republicans and Democrats. In 2000, Omnicom also bought the issue-advertising firm Greer Margolis Mitchell Burns & Associates.
Continues
- Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Washington Post
Consolidation Is the Trend in Influence Industry
Political consultant Joe Trippi became a celebrity by bringing former Vermont governor Howard Dean to the verge of the Democratic presidential nomination. Now Trippi's partners are open to capitalizing on that experience to find a buyer for at least part of their firm.
Steve McMahon of Trippi McMahon & Squier said potential purchasers are doing "quite a bit of tire kicking" of the firm's lobbying affiliate, Issue & Image. "If somebody made us an offer we couldn't refuse," he said, "we wouldn't refuse it."
McMahon is part of a much larger trend. Lobbying and lobbying-related businesses are being gobbled up at such a swift rate that three publicly traded advertising and public relations companies -- WPP Group PLC, Omnicom Group Inc. and Interpublic Group of Companies Inc. -- now own most of the influence industry's best-known names. These global behemoths control firms founded by former president Bill Clinton's pollster, former president Jimmy Carter's spokesman, and the current chairman and immediate past chairman of the Republican Party, among many others.
Insiders say that the consolidation is sure to continue and that other major players will enter the fray. "The business of lobbying is expanding all the time," said Howard Paster, executive vice president of WPP and a pioneer of the corporatization of the District's downtown. "It's only common sense that companies will want to add public affairs businesses to their portfolios."
Some outside observers aren't fans of the movement. "Problems rise exponentially as you get more and more firms under a single roof," said Burdett A. Loomis, a political scientist and lobbying expert at the University of Kansas. "The bigger these merged firms get, the more their service may suffer and the greater the chance for conflicts of interest among their clients."
The mergers are "troubling," said Larry Noble, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. "It raises a lot of questions: Will we see one voice -- or just a very few voices -- addressing various public policy questions? Will these few companies become political powerhouses by controlling a lot of the money in politics?"
Spokesmen for the mega-firms dismiss such complaints. They say the businesses they buy remain autonomous so they don't coordinate their campaign giving and are far enough removed from one another to allow clients who compete to retain different divisions of the same parent company. What's more, they insist, the acquisitions are designed to provide clients with a broad array of services needed in today's campaign-style lobbying efforts.
As a business, lobbying in Washington "is a good growth arena," said Harris Diamond, chief executive of the Weber Shandwick unit of Interpublic Group.
The merger trend began in 1989 with the purchase by WPP of the boutique lobbying firm Timmons & Co., which was one of the first non-lawyer lobbying shops in town. WPP, a British-based communications company, also bought a lobbying firm headed by former Carter aide Anne Wexler.
The pace of acquisitions accelerated at the end of the 1990s. In 1999, Interpublic scooped up Cassidy & Associates, Washington's largest lobbying firm, for a reported $72 million in stock. (Along with Cassidy came Powell Tate, the PR shop run by Carter press secretary Jody Powell.) That same year, Interpublic also bought the lobbying firm started by Haley Barbour, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee and now governor of Mississippi. Omnicom was equally acquisitive, purchasing PR and lobbying firms run by prominent Republicans and Democrats. In 2000, Omnicom also bought the issue-advertising firm Greer Margolis Mitchell Burns & Associates.
Continues
- Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Washington Post
publicado por MP às 16:11
