M&C Saatchi reopens in SA

Johannesburg - Former Ogilvy Cape Town CEO Mike Abel, who emigrated to Australia a year ago to escape crime, is returning to South Africa - as CEO of a new ad agency called M&C Saatchi Abel.

Recently appointed CEO of M&C Saatchi in Australia, Abel is now returning "for family reasons", according to an announcement from London.

This will be the second foray into this market by M&C Saatchi, the agency founded in 1995 by Saatchi brothers Maurice and Charles, after they lost control of their first big agency, Saatchi & Saatchi.

The network first came to SA in 2001 at the instigation of Angel Jones, a South African who was working for M&C Saatchi in London. She partnered with Nina Morris to form an agency under the M&C umbrella, but after 18 months they bought themselves out of M&C, setting up independently as MorrisJones.

Though there was a loose affiliation between the two agencies over the last eight years, there has been no consultation over the new venture, says Morris.

This was part of a global disinvestment by M&C Saatchi in the wake of 9/11, which resulted in savage budget cuts by its founder client, British Airways. It even disinvested from its New York agency, but has been busy reinvesting since then, and now has 19 offices in 14 countries.

South Africa will open with offices in both Cape Town and Johannesburg, and Abel is expected back before the end of 2009. A factor in his return, according to marketplace gossip, is that his wife is extremely unhappy in Australia.

M&C Saatchi, with its catchphrase "Brutal Simplicity", has always been internationalist in thinking and style. At birth it had offices in London, New York, Sydney, Hong Kong and Singapore.

- Fin24.com