Floated on AIM in August 2000, Media Square (MSQ) started life as a cash shell to acquire digital marketing companies. In June 2002 Jeremy Middleton (CEO) and Graeme Burns (CFO) joined the Media Square Board. They adopted a different approach, intending to buy struggling marketing services businesses and restructuring them to make them profitable.
In May 2004 MSQ raised £11 million of new equity. A further round of equity fund raising in October 2004 added another £6 million to support the acquisition of Coutts Holding plc, an AIM-quoted retail marketing services business. In November 2005 Nigel Bacon became Chairman and MSQ acquired The Marketing Services Group from Huntsworth plc for a total of £63 million. This was funded by new equity of £30 million and £39 million of debt.
By 2007 it became clear that the integration of the very large number of acquired agencies was not going well. In March 2007 Non Executive Chairman, Kelvin MacKenzie, resigned. In June 2007 Chief Executive Jeremy Middleton resigned.
In July 2007 Roger Parry was appointed as Executive Chairman, with a brief to do an emergency turnaround. In September 2007 the group issued a major profit warning and in November 2007 reported losses of more than £20 million, reflecting the write-down of the failed acquisitions. A new strategy for the group was adopted to significantly reduce the number of operating units, to simplify the business and to focus purely on marketing communications agencies rather than a broader marketing services proposition.
In November 2008 the company was able to report the beginnings of the turnaround, with a large number of agencies sold, closed or merged. The first post-reconstruction interims were reported which showed operating profit up by 186% year on year, to a figure of £2 million.
In 2009 trading was made far more difficult by the banking crisis. In 2009 both Graeme Burns (Group Finance Director) and Nigel Bacon (Non Executive Director) stepped down from the Board. Bruce Winfield was appointed as CFO. The turnaround was completed at the end of 2009 with the appointment of Peter Reid as Chief Executive Officer.