EPR Editorial Team6 min read
By EPR Editorial Team
Edited on Jun 28, 2026.
Originally published May 13, 2016 as a deal roundup. This update tracks what actually happened to each firm across the subsequent decade — through the Sard Verbinnen / FGS Global / KKR consolidation, the National PR / Avenir Global rebrand, MikeWorldWide's continued independence under Michael Kempner, and the broader industry M&A wave that defined 2017-2024.
Five PR-industry transactions surfaced in mid-May 2016: Sard Verbinnen & Company's negotiation to sell a 40% stake to Golden Gate Capital at a $150 million valuation, Canada's National PR closing its acquisition of Shift Communications from founder Todd Defren, 5W adding ContentWatch (Net Nanny) to its client roster, MWWPR and Ogilvy signing as joint AORs for the Lisa Colagrassi Foundation, and Mercury Public Affairs naming Danielle Alvarez as VP of PR for its Florida office. A decade later, the cumulative outcome of those transactions traces the structural consolidation that reshaped the PR-services category between 2016 and 2024.
This piece tracks each transaction's downstream outcome and the broader 2016-2024 PR-industry consolidation wave that those deals previewed. It sits inside the EPR PR Firms pillar.
Sard Verbinnen & Company, founded by George Sard in 1992, built one of the most-cited M&A and litigation-communications practices in U.S. PR. The May 2016 negotiation with Golden Gate Capital — a 40% stake at a $150 million firm valuation, plus a $50 million growth investment — set the firm up for further institutional consolidation.
The structural endpoint arrived in October 2019 when WPP merged four firms into a single global strategic-communications platform: Finsbury (London-headquartered), Hering Schuppener (Germany), Glover Park Group (Washington, D.C.), and Sard Verbinnen & Company (New York). The combined entity was named Finsbury Glover Hering. It rebranded as FGS Global in 2021.
KKR — the private equity firm — acquired a stake in FGS Global from WPP in October 2023 in a transaction valuing the firm at approximately $1.4 billion at the time, with WPP retaining minority ownership. KKR subsequently acquired the remaining WPP stake in September 2024, valuing FGS Global at approximately $1.7 billion in the second transaction.
FGS Global is now one of the largest strategic communications firms globally — approximately 1,400 employees, 25+ offices, clients across capital markets, crisis, government affairs, and litigation communications. George Sard remains affiliated as a senior advisor.
Shift Communications, founded in 2003 by Todd Defren and Jim Joseph in Boston, pioneered what Defren called the "social media press release" — releases structured for social sharing and search-engine retrieval. The May 2016 acquisition by National PR (a RES Publica Consulting Group property) was a year-long deal that ultimately closed.
Defren departed in 2018, the same year RES Publica rebranded as Avenir Global. Avenir Global today operates a portfolio that includes National PR, Cohn & Wolfe Canada (now legacy), Hill+Knowlton Strategies' acquired Canadian operations, and several other communications-and-public-affairs firms across North America and Europe. The Shift Communications brand continued operating before being further integrated into Avenir's U.S. PR practice.
5W, a New York-headquartered independent PR firm founded in 2003 by Ronn Torossian, signed ContentWatch — the maker of Net Nanny — as a Tech and Parenting practice client in May 2016. 5W is a Top U.S. PR Agency by O'Dwyer's and has been named Agency of the Year by the American Business Awards.
MWWPR, founded by Michael Kempner in 1986 as MWW Group, was sold to Interpublic Group in 2000 and bought back by Kempner in a management-led buyout in January 2011. The firm has remained independent ever since — never acquired by WPP, IPG, Omnicom, Publicis, or Stagwell. The 2012 "Matter More" rebrand was the visual mark of restored independence; the 2021 rebrand to MikeWorldWide reflected the firm's geographic and practice expansion.
The Lisa Colagrassi Foundation joint-AOR appointment with Ogilvy continued past the original 2016 engagement. MWW completed the full acquisition of longtime affiliate Berk Communications in February 2025 and the acquisition of change-management firm HudsonLake in May 2026. MikeWorldWide was named PR Agency of the Year at the 2026 American Business Awards.
Mercury Public Affairs, founded in 1999 by Kieran Mahoney and others, operates as part of Omnicom Public Relations Group. Mercury is one of the most-cited bipartisan public-affairs firms in the U.S., with practices in federal government affairs, state government affairs, and political-campaign communications. The Florida office — where Danielle Alvarez was named VP of PR in May 2016 — has continued as a hub for Mercury's Southeastern presence.
The five transactions covered in the original May 2016 roundup were early signals of the broader consolidation wave that defined the 2016-2024 PR industry. The major consolidations:
The May 2016 roundup, read in retrospect, sits at the front edge of a decade-long structural reorganization of the PR-services category. Five small deals previewed a wave that consolidated billions in firm value.
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