Word: billion
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Investors agreed. They flocked to place money with the brothers, who had earned a reputation for creativity and bareknuckle competitiveness in the genteel British ad market. The Saatchis went on a billion-dollar spree that sparked panic on then complacent Madison Avenue and helped fuel a merger frenzy as other agencies joined forces to stay in the game. Meanwhile the brothers bought and bought. Among the dozens of U.S. firms they scooped up were top names like Compton Communications (purchased in 1982 for $55 million), Dancer Fitzgerald Sample (1986, $75 million) and Backer & Spielvogel (1986, $100 million...
...Saatchi & Saatchi revenues increased more than elevenfold, from $62 million to $697 million. In 1986, with the $450 million purchase of the Ted Bates agency, the brothers reached their avowed goal: Saatchi & Saatchi was the world's biggest ad firm. By last year, their client billings had reached $13.5 billion (runner-up Interpublic billed $8.4 billion), and the company had offices in 58 countries...
...crack in that facade occurred in January 1986, just two months before the purchase of Bates, when longtime finance chief Martin Sorrell departed to start his own agency. Sorrell, who had grown restive as a Saatchi subordinate, has since assembled an agency group, WPP, with annual revenues of $1.2 billion. Close observers of Saatchi & Saatchi date the firm's financial drift from Sorrell's departure. Says a marketing executive in London: "He guided them. When he left, they did not know...
Trying to deliver 160 billion pieces of mail may be driving the carrier crazy. Bush's fence-mending mission to China unleashes a storm of criticism. -- AIDS protesters target the Roman Catholic Church...
Deodorant soap, pacemakers, food-color additives, blood banks, coffee, tongue depressors, eyeglass screws, tampons and cancer drugs -- all come under the scrutiny of the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA certifies the purity and safety of one-quarter of all U.S. consumer products, in addition to regulating the $400 billion food, pharmaceutical and medical-devices industries. But throughout the 1980s the FDA has been traumatized by budget and staff reductions, fusses over testing of drugs to combat AIDS, second- guessing over poisoned Chilean grapes, corrupt employees and controversies over the nutritional claims adorning food packages...