Is BMF’s departure just a blip or a change in its winning culture?
You don’t often write about big departures from BMF.
Unlike just about every other ad agency in Australia it’s seemed to be on an uninterrupted upward trajectory.
It sailed through the departure of one of the three founders, Paul Fishlock, without losing momentum.
And under Warren Brown and Matthew Melhuish even its sale to Photon for $22m and shares more than two years ago didn’t appear to alter its culture, which has alwasy been a winning one.
Just this month it held an all-staff party to celebrate being named B&T’s agency of the decade. So bad timing to this week see creative director Simon Langley depart.
To lose someone so senior, it makes me wonder for the first time whether ownership by Photon is finally having a subtle effect.
We’ve already seen the impact that being owned by Photon has elsewhere. When Mat Baxter suddenly left Naked, he said he’d learned a lot about working for an ASX-listed company before his departure. You can probably take that in more than one way.
In Langley’s case, he’s headed for 303, where he’ll have a stake in the business. That’s not something Photon seems in much of a position to give right now. Tomorrow sees the company’s interim results which are not going to be great.
The last month or so has seen the announced departure of Photon CEO Matt Bailey and the company warning that those results to be announced tomorrow will be worse than previously forecast. Its current market capitalisation is less than $200m.
(Mind you, I notice that recent Photon announcements to the ASX dont appear on the investors section of Photon’s website – the last one dates back to February last year, which seems a bit sloppy.)
Up to now, one of the selling points Photon offered to companies it acquired was that they could maintain their own cultures.
For BMF, to go on being a bigger success than its holding company may well be its most important task.
Tim Burrowes
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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i think they’ll be fine. They have a solid management team, they are great thinkers and care about their clients. No I don’t work for BMF but I work with them
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I also think they’ll be fine.
But make no mistake – as soon as you sell your company, your biggest job is to protect the staff, the culture and the clients from the new owners.
Fortunately Matt & Warren did the deal mostly in cash so they’re probably not chasing a ridiculous earnout. That’s when things can get really messy and compromises are made.
If you want to see what goes wrong when a good agency gets sold, look at Amnesia.
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@Y’know – Right of reply… I’m one of the founders of Amnesia.
Yes, I’m still here. Most people know me as a straight shooter so I can honestly say Amnesia is arguably in the best shape it’s ever been in. If it wasn’t in good shape – I can promise you I for one would not be here and neither would the most of the core of the Amnesia team some who have been here between 4-9 years and the class acts who have joined us recently.
I’d also like to point out that when you read about people leaving an agency it is not always a negative. Unfortunately it just makes for a better story on Mumbrella when it is implied as being the other way.
@eunmac
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