NEW YORK: Gavin Anderson & Co, a New York-based investor relations and corporate PR firm, has snapped up the high-powered Washington DC-based outfit Chlopak, Leonard, Schechter & Associates, which specializes in corporate and public affairs.
NEW YORK: Gavin Anderson & Co, a New York-based investor relations and corporate PR firm, has snapped up the high-powered Washington DC-based outfit Chlopak, Leonard, Schechter & Associates, which specializes in corporate and public affairs.
CLS is known to have the ear of senior policymakers in Washington and abroad, and its client roster boasts some of the biggest names in technology, communications and international affairs, including Oracle, Verizon, the World Bank and the World Health Organization.
The buy gives Gavin Anderson a greater presence in the nation's capital and strengthens the firm's hand in negotiating policy. 'You can't play on an international stage without having a significant presence in both New York and Washington,' said Gavin Anderson president Robert Mead. 'We now have two very strong offices in both those markets.'
CLS will keep its name, operating as a Gavin Anderson company. Co-founder Robert Chlopak echoed Mead's sentiments. 'We think we've got something that's somewhat unique in the industry,' he boasted. 'It's a combination of where we are geographically, the specialties we bring and the track record these two agencies have that really gives us a good position in the market.'
CLS won accolades for its deft offensive on behalf of client Oracle during the Microsoft antitrust trial. The Wall Street Journal paid it a backhanded compliment of sorts when it called CLS 'a bare-knuckled PR firm'.
Of CLS' three founding partners - Chlopak, Charles Leonard and Peter Schechter - Chlopak will become EVP of Gavin Anderson, while Leonard and Schechter will each become senior executives in the combined firm.
Founded in 1992, CLS employs a staff of 40 between its Washington headquarters and New York satellite office. Gavin Anderson, by contrast, has been around for 20 years and has a staff of nearly 300 spread across the globe, with offices in London, Paris, Frankfurt, Brussels, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra.
The firm is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Omnicom Group, and its roster includes clients from a variety of sectors, including IBM, Standard & Poors, Volkswagen, and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter.
