Finsbury and Hering Schuppener to tie up with US lobbyists Glover Park

Roland Rudd’s Finsbury public relations company, which last year linked up with Frankfurt’s Hering Schuppener Consulting, is joining forces with Washington communications and government relations company Glover Park in a move to increase their firepower in the US capital as they look to help clients get global deals over the line.

The link-up is set to be announced later on Wednesday according to Due Diligence, the FTs’ new daily email on mergers & acquisitions.

According to DD, Mr Rudd, co-founder of Finsbury, told employees in an email “our clients will benefit from an even more extended network of expertise and resources, regardless of which company or office might be their primary point of contact.”

Glover Park and Finsbury are already owned outright by WPP, the advertising and marketing giant controlled by Sir Martin Sorrell. WPP also owns a substantial minority stake in Hering Schuppener.

Although there are expectations that deals in industries such as energy may be easier under a Trump administration, the consensus is companies will need more PR help in other sectors.

However, pitfalls for the “big is beautiful” approach among PR companies seem unavoidable. Mr Rudd’s firm has the recent experience of the aborted Kraft Heinz takeover bid for Unilever. Mr Rudd was initially on the advisory team of the US foods company. But when Paul Polman, Unilever chief executive, got to hear of the arrangement – Unilever is a big advertising client of WPP – he emailed Sir Martin to express his disapproval and Finsbury withdrew, to be replaced by rivals FTI Consulting.