Dentsu Inc. buys out Mogae Consultants' stake in its India operations

With the development, the three full-service advertising agencies, established as joint ventures between Dentsu and Mogae, will become wholly-owned Dentsu Inc. subsidiaries.

In a global development, Dentsu Inc. has bought out the 26 per cent equity stake held by Mogae Consultants in Dentsu's India operations, announced Tatsuyoshi Takashima, president and chief executive officer, Dentsu Inc.

With the development, the three full-service advertising agencies of Dentsu in India - Dentsu Communications, Dentsu Marcom and Dentsu Creative Impact together with companies under the Dentsu Communications umbrella which includes Dentsu Mediatech and Clickstreamers, have been integrated into an organisation called the Dentsu India Group.

In accordance with the terms of the transaction, Sandeep Goyal, the incumbent chairman of the Dentsu India Group, will resign from his position. He will also resign from the boards of the three advertising agencies.

Goyal will however continue to support the Dentsu India Group as its founder chairman. Tanya Goyal will also resign from the boards of directors, and will become a principal advisor to the Dentsu India Group.

Dentsu cites the need to provide a higher level of unique services to global clients in view of the growing significance of the Indian market. This was why the decision to make the joint-venture companies into wholly-owned subsidiaries was taken.

With effect from February 2, Yuzuru Kato, executive officer in charge of global business, Dentsu Inc., will take charge as the absentee chairman of the Dentsu India Group. Seiichiro Hayata, seconded from the global business management division of Dentsu Inc., and acting as incumbent senior executive vice-president of Dentsu India will be the acting chairman.

Gullu Sen, incumbent executive vice-chairman of Dentsu India and chief creative officer and Rajesh Aggarwal, incumbent president of Dentsu India, will take up the same roles at Dentsu India Group.

In a press statement, Kato says, "By making these three companies wholly-owned Dentsu subsidiaries in the rapidly developing and increasingly important Indian market, we aim to enhance our infrastructure to provide the best integrated solutions to our clients in all the business domains. Focussing on the area of communications, we will implement marketing communication strategies that solve the management and business issues facing advertisers and media content companies today."

He adds, "Ideas that reach beyond the imaginable, technology that crosses the bounds of possibilities, entrepreneurship that surpasses the expected -- we will use these three sources of strength, stated in the Dentsu Group corporate philosophy, to create innovation."

For the record, Dentsu Communications and Dentsu Marcom, established in 2003, have offices in Bengaluru, New Delhi, Chennai, and Gurgaon, Mumbai and Ahmedabad, respectively. Dentsu Creative Impact, set up in 2005, is based in New Delhi.

Some of the key clients handled by Dentsu Communications include Aircel, Toyota, Delhi Government and Acer.

Dentsu Marcom handles Honda Cars, Honda Bikes, Canon and Parx, while Dentsu Creative Impact's portfolio consists of Maruti Suzuki and FedEx, among others.

Clickstreamers, an interactive agency offering Dentsu's Indian client base with a range of interactive and digital media services, was set up as a joint venture between Dentsu India and Connecturf in 2007.

Dentsu MediaTech was launched more recently, in 2009, to offer clients a spectrum of one-to-one engagement, cutting-edge creative solutions, end-to-end media and a full slew of digital, mobile and new media services. Being the youngest agency of the group it was positioned with more focus on the technology interface of traditional advertising.