Millward Brown Forms JV to Expand Across Africa

Millward Brown (MB) has formed a joint venture with Kenya-based marketing services firm Scangroup, and will merge its Kenya office into the newly formed operation.

From January 2008, the MB majority-owned unit will be known as Millward Brown East Africa, and offer services across East Africa including Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya. There are further plans to extend to West Africa from a base in Lagos, Nigeria.

MB's Charles Foster, who was promoted to the position of Managing Director of MB South Africa in 2005 (www.mrweb.com/drno/news3941.htm ), commented: 'Our partnership with Scangroup is a natural progression that will allow us to better serve our clients across all regions in Africa.'

Established in 1982, Scangroup acts as a holding company for a number of global advertising, media planning and buying and PR agencies, and in 2006, became the first marketing services firm to be listed in any stock exchange in Africa. For the first half or 2007, the firm registered 31% pre-tax profit on the back of a 54% growth in billings.

CEO Bharat Thakrar added: 'We have said in the past that we were keen to partner with a leading market research provider in order to complement our existing services and this is the culmination of that plan.'

In July, MB moved its Africa Asia Pacific Regional COO Adrian Gonzalez from Sydney to Beijing to help identify further opportunities in China (www.mrweb.com/drno/news7048.htm ).

The firms are online at www.millwardbrown.com and www.scangroup.biz.