Advertising giant WPP could have been sold to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, it emerged today.
Its ousted former chief executive Sir Martin Sorrell told a Campaign magazine event in London that a deal was discussed in 2012, but no price was agreed.
Sorrell said Buffett “was really interested in WPP becoming part of Berkshire”.
He added: “We had a brief conversation and he’s very shrewd. He cuts to the quick. He’s very fixed in terms of price and the premium he offered was not sufficient.
“It was about 15%, maybe a little bit more. The average premium was 30%, and we couldn’t encourage him to go to 30. I would’ve loved to have done that if it had been at the right price.”
According to Sir Martin, now building his own digital-based agency, Buffett offered 925p a share for WPP, higher than the present share price.
In a dig at WPP, he said: “The best form of revenge would be building a significant and successful new-era, new-format, new-approach agency,” after criticising WPP’s handling of his misconduct probe.
