MAM
MWG India forms Creative Central with Praduymna Chauhan as ECD
MUMBAI: McCann Worldgroup India has formed a special unit – Creative Central – which will work towards creating insightful creative work for its clients.
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It will be spearheaded by Praduymna Chauhan as the ECD.
Welcoming Praduymna on board, McCann Worldgroup India and south Asia, chairman, CEO and chief creative officer, Prasoon Joshi said, “With a sharp and insightful approach reinforced by a stellar body of work, Pradyumna is keen to create work that impacts popular culture. Based currently in Mumbai, he will work with our creative directors and teams across McCann India offices and functions on our key brands. In the near future we will find more people with a similar skill set and approach to strengthen McCann Creative Central.”
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Praduymna has worked on numerous popular creatives like MP Tourism Ajab Hai and Colours campaigns, Asian Paints, Star‘s Satyamev Jayate, Vodafone ICICI and Birla Sun Life‘s Jab Tak Balla Chalta Hai.
Before joining MWG he was Group creative director at Ogilvy Mumbai. He has worked, apart from the above mentioned, also on Airtel, LG Electronics, General Motors, HPCL etc. His work has won him recognition at Adfest, Cannes, Spikes, New York Fest, Abbies, Effies and AMEs.
The unit will work closely with the strategic planning function to constantly create insightful work and solutions for MWG clients. Creative Central will also constantly leverage the knowledge base generated at Truth Central (A McCann insight arm) and play a major role in converting the knowledge and insights across brands in India.
Prasoon sees this as an important step towards increasi
Brands
Unilever nears $60bn merger of its food arm with spice giant McCormick
A cash-and-stock deal, structured to be tax-efficient, could be announced as early as this week, but the ink is not yet dry
LONDON: The world’s condiment cupboard is about to get a whole lot more consolidated. Unilever, the Anglo-Dutch consumer goods giant, is closing in on a deal to carve out a large chunk of its food business and merge it with McCormick & Company, the American spice-maker, creating a combined entity worth roughly $60bn, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.
The proposed transaction would be structured as a cash-and-stock deal, with Unilever shareholders expected to retain about two-thirds of the new entity. A cash component of approximately $16bn is set to be included. The vehicle of choice is a Reverse Morris Trust, a structure beloved by corporate lawyers for its ability to shield such transactions from US federal income taxes.
Not everything is on the table, however. Unilever has made clear that its India operations would be excluded from the arrangement, preserving one of its most prized and complex emerging-market businesses from the merger’s reach.
If finalised, the deal would rank among the largest consolidations the global food industry has seen in years, yoking together two of the biggest names in packaged foods and seasonings. The combined group could significantly bolster its clout in international markets, particularly in branded consumer products.
Unilever, though, is playing it carefully. The company reiterated that talks are continuing and that final terms have yet to be agreed, adding that it would provide further updates as negotiations progress.
Watch this space, but do not reach for the mustard just yet.
