The Five Key Factors PR Agency Acquirers Look For in an Acquisition Candidate (On-Demand Recording)
Webcast Overview
Will they want my PR firm as is? In this instance we’re not talking about a new business presentation. This is a question virtually every PR agency owner asks herself or himself when considering the possibility of selling their agency. Will a buyer, any buyer, be interested in what we have to offer now? In this second in a 6-part series of webcasts sponsored by The Stevens Group and brought to you by CommPRO, Peter Finn, Founding Managing Partner of Finn Partners, shares his insights with agency leadership on what he looks for in a seller agency before he either decides to take a pass, or to start taking the necessary steps to integrate the seller’s firm into his firm. Further, Peter shares what are in his opinion as one of the most methodical buyers of PR agencies in the US, the five key factors that any PR agency buyer is most likely to look for in an acquisition candidate.
Special Guest
Peter FinnFounding PartnerFinn Partners
Peter Finn plays the central role in the creation and ongoing initiatives of Finn Partners and the development of the practices and offices that now make up the global agency. Over the years his contributions as Founding Managing Partner have included the recruitment of key executives, and the orchestration of domestic and global acquisitions of agencies specializing in technology, consumer marketing, tourism, branding, public affairs and social and digital practices. He’s developed a powerful team, acquiring top notch agencies and integrating them into the firm, building what began as a small agency in 2011 into one of the top independent agencies in the world. Under Peter’s direction, Finn Partners was selected by the prestigious Holmes Report as “Best New Agency” in 2012 and later was “Midsize Agency of the Year” by PR News and Holmes Report. Finn continues to grow rapidly and is currently ranked by the O’Dwyer’s report as the 4h largest US based independent PR firm. Through Finn’s efforts, the firm has more than tripled in size over the past five years and now has approximately 600 members internationally.Prior to launching Finn Partners, Peter was Co-CEO of Ruder Finn, Inc., He first joined Ruder Finn in 1976 and played a key role since the 1980s in turning the firm into one of the largest independently owned public relations firms in the world.Peter is co-founder, with his wife Sarah, and Chairman of the Catskill Mountain Foundation, one of the largest arts organizations in the upstate New York, where he continues to work with many public officials at the local, state and federal level, impacting the region’s economic development. He is the recipient of the 2017 Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts award.Peter has a B.A. from Brown University and an M.A. from Columbia University.
Host
Rich JachettiSenior PartnerThe Stevens Group
Rich joined the firm as Senior Associate in January 2015 and in October of the same year was named Senior Partner. Rich owned his own public relations agency for eight years and in 1987 merged his firm with LobsenzStevens. For nearly a decade, Jachetti served as an executive vice president and group manager of LobsenzStevens where he worked side-by-side with agency founder and CEO Art Stevens on, among other things, the selection and due diligence of L-S’s subsequent multiple PR agency acquisitions.Before joining TSG, Rich founded emotionmapping, LLC, an integrated marketing communications company based in Westchester, New York that specialized in providing advertising, PR, sales promotion and digital marketing consultation and services.In 1996, he joined one of the country’s leading, and award-winning sales promotion agencies, DVC Worldwide, and served for eight years as part of that agency’s team of senior executives responsible for new business development and the expansion of business among the firm’s existing client base.In his career, Rich has helped companies in multiple industry categories become wealthy, famous, respected winners. Advertising, promotional marketing and public relations campaigns he has developed over the past 40+ years have helped convince customers/stakeholders to choose, trust, try, recommend, respond, read, write, stop smoking, start exercising, contribute, vote, take their medicine, travel, merge, hire and buy depending on the clients’ business objectives. 
