Chennai, Aug 24: BBDO, the American advertising giant, is to increase its stake in the joint venture R K Swamy/BBDO to 40 per cent later this year. Presently, it has a stake of 20 per cent in an equity base of Rs 8,50,000.

Confirming this in a faxed message to The Financial Express, company's president Shekar Swamy has said, ``The matter is awaiting the arrival of the new BBDO Asia Pacific chairman later this year.''

R K Swamy/BBDO is a part of the BBDO Worldwide network and Swamy said that as BBDO increases its stake, it would augur well for the agency and this would indicate its ongoing commitment to this market in general.

In a reply to a query about what it would do to their business, Swamy said that since it was already integrated into the BBDO system, the increase in equity per se may not mean anything more to the business than we have already experienced.

The R K Swamy/BBDO alliance is 9 years old. It is learnt that initially the arrangement was a business one and progresively BBDO picked up a stake in the equity.

Some major accounts that R K Swamy/BBDO handles are Madras Fertilisers, Hidustan Petroleum, Orchid Chemicals, Shipping Corporation of India, DuPont, Enron, Federal Express, Life Insurance Corporation of India, Corporation Bank of India, Visa International, Sara Lee Corp, etc. It aims to have a billing of around Rs 200 crore for the year 1997-98. It is ranked seventh among the Indian agencies.

Some of the major accounts held by BBDO Worldwide are Chrysler, BMW, British Telecom, Campbell South, Adidas, Apple Computers, Johnson & Johnson, Federal Express, ICI/ Dulux, Dupont, General Electric etc. It is one of the three largest agencies in the world with a billing of around $8 billion. It has 181 branches in 61 countries.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.