Gulf Venture Sinks Canadian Marketing Group

In Canada, marketing firm the Bristol Group has entered voluntary receivership and been bought out of it by rival firm M5. Bristol's research company Omnifacts is to merge with M5's MarketQuest.

Bristol is part of Saga Investments, which issued only a brief statement suggesting that the company had failed to recover after the failure of Bristol Gulf LLC, an ill-fated investment in an office in Doha, Qatar, now closed, into which it reportedly sank about $3 million.

With the resulting substantial losses for the whole group, Saga decided on a 'structured voluntary shutdown' of operations in its three Canadian offices, in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and New Brunswick. The action means that Saga will not have to pay Bristol Group's substantial creditors.

Execs at St. John's-based M5 said the company had turned down an offer a few months ago of a possible merger, but Jim Megann, SVP of Client Services, confirmed that M5 had now offered jobs to nearly eighty Bristol employees, in its offices in St. John's, Halifax and Moncton. Megann says the staff work 'in various disciplines that range from market research right through to strategic communications and digital support services.'

Bristol's clients included a number of prominent Canadian politicians, including former federal Tory cabinet minister John Crosbie, former New Brunswick premier Bernard Lord and former Newfoundland and Labrador premier Brian Tobin.

Web site: www.bristolgroup.ca .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.