Crisis-hit marketing group Next 15 approached about £200m break-up

A London-listed selling conglomerate which sacked 3 of its apical executives this week has been approached astir a £200m break-up.

Sky News has learnt that Next 15 has been holding talks astir a merchantability of its "legacy" assets, which see the fiscal nationalist relations bureau MHP, with an unnamed bidder.

That would permission the rump of the concern focused connected exertion and data-driven lawsuit businesses.

One manufacture root said the prospective purchaser was believed to beryllium a backstage equity firm.

Next 15 issued a nett informing and changed its enactment this week arsenic it disclosed "potential superior misconduct" related to Mach49, a Silicon Valley advisory concern it owns.

"As a consequence, Next 15 has terminated the employment of 3 members of the elder absorption astatine Mach49 - Linda Yates, Russ Lampert and Paul Holland. David Charpie, presently co-CEO of Mach49, volition go sole CEO with contiguous effect," it said successful a banal speech connection connected Wednesday.

"Next 15, connected behalf of Mach49, is successful the process of reporting the matters to applicable instrumentality enforcement agencies.

"It is excessively aboriginal to cognize the outcome, but Next 15 volition guarantee that afloat co-operation is provided to those agencies."

The company, which has a marketplace worth of astir £210m aft seeing its banal slump by astir 75% implicit the past year.

It besides announced this week that Tim Dyson, its main enforcement for implicit 3 decades, would discontinue and beryllium replaced by Sam Knights, the brag of Shopper Media Group, a subsidiary of Next 15.

A idiosyncratic adjacent to Next 15 insisted that immoderate imaginable break-up would bespeak the "simplification strategy" to which it had publically alluded.

Next 15 declined to remark connected the attack for immoderate of its assets, which are besides thought to see the originative bureau Elvis and Outcast, different PR firm.