Comments on: PRWeek Top 150 2009 Analysis – Who is best placed for 2009? http://www.showmenumbers.com/pr-industry/prweek-top-150-2009-analysis-who-is-best-placed-for-2009 This is the Blog of Adam Parker on numbers and relevance Sat, 11 Feb 2017 16:09:05 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.42 By: AdamParker http://www.showmenumbers.com/pr-industry/prweek-top-150-2009-analysis-who-is-best-placed-for-2009/comment-page-1#comment-320 Tue, 23 Jun 2009 09:59:08 +0000 http://www.showmenumbers.com/?p=614#comment-320 Thanks for stopping by David and the kind words about the post. Regardless of holding company positions it is possible in many cases to get figures for these agencies by pulling the individual subsidiary accounts from Companies House (depending on group structure). The profit figures may be spurious as they could be impacted by group transactions, but the fee income and staffing figures should be pretty accurate. The only real issue being these will often be a year older due to filing timescales. For example I have just pulled the subsidiary accounts for one of the Top 10 agencies that have claimed SOX for the year ending Dec 07 (no names as I need to stay independent for obvious commercial reasons). This showed this agency making fee income that was 20% higher than the figure for the agency in the 2008 PRWeek rankings. It also showed the agency having 20% more staff than the ranking table implied. However it is worth noting that over a third of its turnover was from outside the UK and I am unsure if the PRWeek rankings are meant to only look at UK based income? If so then the opposite situation might be the case i.e. that the PRWeek figures would have overestimated by 20%.

]]> By: david brain http://www.showmenumbers.com/pr-industry/prweek-top-150-2009-analysis-who-is-best-placed-for-2009/comment-page-1#comment-318 Fri, 19 Jun 2009 16:18:38 +0000 http://www.showmenumbers.com/?p=614#comment-318 interesting analysis and congrats on it. On the Sarbanes thing, here is what PR Week US said on the matter. It is largely a holding company choice that figures are not released as all the big brands have US GAAP compliant numbers.

It’s time for agencies to stop hiding behind SOX
February 06, 2008

We continue to wait in vain for revenue and staffing figures from the major holding company agencies. While many have perhaps forgotten that full and transparent disclosure of this information used to be standard practice, PRWeek – we can assure you – has not.

We continue to object to the specious reasoning that caused the holding companies to withdraw from participating in all industry rankings.

We object strongly to the perpetuation of the myth that Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) mandates that holding companies not disclose this information. Make no mistake: these companies have elected not to reveal this information to shareholders and stakeholders, much less the readers of marketing titles. This decision goes against the spirit of increased and accurate disclosure that the act was meant to foster.

To be sure, Sarbanes-Oxley compliance is an expensive and labor-intensive undertaking. But even though their revenues are not publicly disclosed, holding company agencies have been GAAP-compliant in their reporting for years. There are no barriers to full transparency, other than a stubborn lack of candor on the part of the holding companies, and perhaps the fact that some agencies might have been less than buttoned down in their reporting in years past.

That is all the more reason why responsible firms must fight the lack of disclosure. For an industry that is the biggest proponent of openness and candor, the stance against transparency is increasingly indefensible.

The rankings form for the PRWeek Agency Business Report is available for download at http://www.prweek.com. The deadline to receive forms is February 29. If you have any questions, please e-mail rankings@prweek.com.

From the February 11, 2008 Issue of PRWeek

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