The 2015 shareholder class action against MDC Partners resolved without admission of liability, alongside no-admission SEC settlements by both the company ($1.5M) and Miles Nadal ($5.5M) and the voluntary repayment that preceded charges. How the litigation closed.
Stagwell Inc. (NASDAQ: STGW) is the fifth major advertising and communications holding company. Founded in 2015 by Mark Penn as a $250M private LLC, merged with MDC Partners in 2021, today 70+ agencies, 13,000+ employees, $2B+ revenue. The full arc.
The July 2015 MDC Partners and Hain Celestial governance scrutiny period became a reference case in holding-company governance crisis communications. The subsidiary-brand insulation problem, the Nadal and Simon disclosures, and what holding-company governance comms hardened into.
Miles Nadal built MDC Partners into one of the most influential advertising holding companies of the modern era — and after the 2015 disclosure episode resolved, built Peerage Capital, the Dare to Dream Foundation, and joined the Canadian Marketing Association Hall of Legends. The full arc.
