What Happens When Agency Mergers and Acquisitions Disappoint?

Benefits of going it alone can outweigh risks

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The lifeblood of the ad business has always been entrepreneurs who sell their businesses and energize industry holding companies.

While the promise of personal wealth, resources and global expansion are a draw for sellers, the realities of relinquishing control become clear. (Consider Mad Men's Sterling Cooper & Partners, who had barely drained their champagne flutes before McCann Erickson swallowed what was to be an "independent subsidiary," causing SC&P execs to bolt.) Back to real life, while newly enriched sellers eventually do cash in their chips and leave, there are those operators who remain to face a new life of compromise within publicly traded behemoths.

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