Lou Cordwell
Two of Manchester’s leading agencies: marketing communications company MC2 and digital agency magneticNorth, are in advanced merger discussions. Prolific North understands discussions and due diligence are under way.
Both companies co-incidentally were established in 1999. MC2 has sales of circa £3m and magneticNorth circa £1.8m.
MC2 is owned by Mike Perls together with his wife Jenny Morgan while Lou Cordwell is the majority shareholder at magneticNorth. Cordwell’s co-founder, Brendan Dawes, exited the business last year.
Although we were unable to obtain confirmation from either party, the rationale behind the merger, which is likely to see MC2 emerge with a majority shareholding, would combine MC2’s more traditional marketing communications strengths (developed largely around corporate, financial and professional services) with those of one of the UK’s leading independent digital agencies in magneticNorth.
MC2’s offices are in Little Peter Street and magneticNorth can be found on Princess St.
MC2 has previously made two acquisitions: PR agency Vertigo in 2007 and Wallop Video last year.
MC2 clients include corporates NCC and Kraft and a number of processional services firms including Deloittes. Perls also has several interests in companies outside of his MC2 holding.
Mike Perls
He was also the chair of the MPA before the MEN’s Richard Roycroft took over last year.
MagneticNorth’s client roster, although smaller than that of MC2, includes a number of national and international (media) brands.
The agency undertakes regular high profile commissions for the BBC including building the archive site for the iconic radio show Desert Island Discs and recently launching BBC Sport’s new App through to a showcased project at Google’s I/O conference in San Francisco.
More locally the agency works with the BBC Philharmonic orchestra and the Manchester Visitor Centre.
