Major restructuring at Carat in the pipeline; Aegis Media to enter India

Aegis Media, the holding company of Vizeum and Carat, is setting up base in India, and Carat chief Sulina Menon will head the outfit as CEO

In a significant development, Aegis Media, the holding company of Vizeum and Carat globally, is setting up base in India. Aegis Media was launched recently by the Aegis Group Worldwide to ensure that "both Vizeum and Carat leverage Aegis' established market position across borders".

Sulina Menon, who is CEO of Carat India, will be promoted as CEO, Aegis Media. Meanwhile, Carat India and Carat Integra have merged and Shripad Kulkarni, CEO of Carat Integra, will head the merged entity called Carat India. Under the new scheme of things, Carat India and all future Aegis initiatives will kick off under the behest of Menon.

While no official confirmation on this was available, informal conversations with executives familiar with the development indicated that the new order would take effect "sooner than later". A clear signal of this is that Aegis Media is already on the look out for people. Sources indicate recruitment at senior levels is "very much on the agenda".

To put things in perspective, Aegis Media operates three media networks globally - Carat, Vizeum and Posterscope Worldwide. In the UK, Aegis Media encompasses Carat, Carat Insight, Carat Interactive and Feather Brooksbank (media specialist), besides, Vizeum.

When Aegis Group sets up shop in India, three of its group units will also follow suit. These include media communication specialist Vizeum, Posterscope, which plans and buys outdoor across the UK (it is also the leader in the UK outdoor market with billings in excess of £270 million), and Carat Interactive, which offers its services to the entire Carat UK Group to plan and implement media activity spanning the Internet, interactive TV, email, mobile phones and PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants, more commonly referred to as PDAs, are handheld devices that in many ways act like small portable computers).

What is not clear, however, is the timeframe that the group has set for itself to make each of these ventures fully operational in India. But what has been clearly laid down is that Aegis Media's task in India would be oversee the functioning of Carat, Carat Interactive, Vizeum and Posterscope, and that "Carat and Vizeum will compete with each other in the Indian market". © 2003 agencyfaqs!