Belgiovane Williams Mackay has sold a 51% stake to Dentsu Aegis

February 2015 — The private founding shareholders of Belgiovane Williams Mackay (BWM), a creative digital advertising and communications agency, have sold a 51% stake in the company to Dentsu Aegis, part of Dentsu Inc., the Japanese global advertising and communications group. Financial details have not been disclosed.

BWM is a creative advertising, digital communications, consumer focused social public relations, agribusiness communications and indigenous communications agency based in Sydney and Melbourne.

Dentsu Aegis, part of the Japanese-listed Dentsu Inc., comprises eight global network brands supported by a number of specialist/multi-market brands which service clients through capabilities in media, digital and creative communications services. Dentsu Aegis operates in 110 countries with 23,000 specialists. BWM will become part of the Dentsu Aegis Network ANZ, which operates in major cities across Australia and New Zealand.

Our role in the transaction

Oaklins' team in Australia has been the retained advisor to BWM for several years and had previously advised its shareholders on the repurchase of a minority shareholding in the company which they had sold to a strategic investor some years earlier. BWM has developed its business from a pure creative agency to a broad based group with a growing digital business and, as such, became attractive to Dentsu who made an approach to the shareholders. Our team advised on the pricing, structuring, negotiating and execution of the transaction in which Dentsu bought 51% of BWM. This involved complex negotiations across different time zones and on the structuring of the transaction to ensure a deal was done which met the expectations of both BWM shareholders and Dentsu going forward. In the course of the transaction we referred to Oaklins' media specialist team in New York to check valuation expectations based on their expertise.