February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Talks between Des O’Meara & Partners and AFA Advertising are ongoing and agreement could be reached shortly, according to reports in Ireland.
While both parties claim the talks concern a potential merger, most advertising sources claim the deal is likely to result in the effective takeover of Des O’Meara & Partners by AFA.
Des O’Meara, a long-established agency, has been under pressure in the past two years. The firm had to lay off about seven people last year and, according to its last set of accounts (for the year ending December 2001), it made a pre-tax loss of more than euro 500,000.
O’Meara admitted that the company has been through a tough time. When asked how long the talks might take before a deal was concluded, he replied, “How long is a piece of string?” He declined to comment further.