WPP Sells Stake in Watermelon Owner Chime

WPP has sold its 25 percent stake in comms group Chime, the owner of insight firm Watermelon, to Chime's majority shareholder Providence Equity Partners, for £54.4m plus potential future payments.

Chime was established in 1989 and led by Margaret Thatcher's former communications adviser Tim Bell, to whose PR firm Bell Pottinger it was parent. Watermelon was launched in 2012 as a digital MR agency, and recently absorbed the older Facts International and Opinion Leader brands, while itself becoming part of Chime's VCCP Group of creative agencies.

WPP has long held a stake in Chime, and despite apparently pondering a sale in autumn 2013, in July 2015 suddenly announced it had agreed with Provident to buy the group for around £374m. Allowing for about £200m of debt, the value of the group under today's deal is 'roughly in line' with the 2015 price, according to ft.com. The paper also quotes an unnamed source to the effect that WPP CEO Mark Read has sold the original Wire and Plastic Products shopping basket manufacturer from which his group takes its name, 'for an undisclosed sum and within the last couple of weeks'.

Web sites: www.wpp.com , www.watermelonresearch.com and www.provequity.com .