``We're now on a firm footing,'' says Mr Seth and adds that his agency is on a comeback trail. ``Equus is now tighter as earlier. We'll focus on our core competence and there will be no deviation,'' assures Mr Seth.

Here's a flashback: Mr Seth had launched an advertising and marketing portal-brandquiver.com-in April this year which was later taken over by Bennet Coleman & Co. Mr Seth's foray into the dotcom era had come soon after his agency lost the Rs 30-crore Daewoo Motors account to Enterprise Nexus. The loss of the Daewoo account was a major setback for Equus since that was the only large account it had. As a result, profits took a dip. ``Because of our lack of focus and overdependence on one client we were limited in our approach and outlook,'' admits Mr Seth.

In its second coming, the agency-headquartered in Calcutta-has for the first time in the last five years branched out to Mumbai with a significant basket of accounts such as Standard Furukawa, Casa Mia, Tata Internet, Tata Nova, and others. Mumbai operations are now being headed by brother and deputy chief executive officer Mr Swapan Seth who as Mr Suhel Seth says `was earlier reluctant to move out from Calcutta'. According to Mr Suhel Seth, business from Mumbai alone translates to Rs 11 crore.

In Delhi, Equus in the last three months claims to have added accounts worth Rs 25-30 crore and plans to make aggressive pitches in the next two months. Among its new gains are accounts such as Spectranet which has moved from Bates; Lifespring; Global Infomalls and others. In Calcutta, Coca-Cola and Polar fans are the new accounts which have fallen in its kitty.

``The strategy now is to have many large businesses rather than depend on one large business,'' says Mr Suhel Seth. In another move, the agency has switched to fee-based payment system and does not involve itself with media buying for its clients. ``Our focus is only on providing marketing solutions through the communication window,''says Mr Suhel Seth.

The agency expects to achieve a capitalised billings of Rs 40 crore in the current financial year.

WPP hikes stake in Equus
UK advertising conglomerate WPP Plc, has increased its equity stake in Equus advertising agency from 30 per cent to 45 per cent. The change in the shareholding pattern follows the withdrawal of the third shareholder Korad, an in-house agency of the Korean auto company Daewoo, which was earlier holding 30 per cent equity stake in the agency. Consequently, Seth Brothers'-Swapan and Suhel-stake has also gone up from 40 per cent to 55 per cent.

As per Mr Suhel Seth, CEO, Equus, the agency was capitalised at Rs 25 lakh initially and has been consistently delivering profits at over Rs 1 crore.Equus-other than Quadra Marketing Consultancy headed by Mr Shunu Sen-is the only direct investment WPP has ever made in the world.