Joe Public goes solo

“The deal has been on the table for some time and negotiations have ended in mutually beneficial terms for both parties. We are ecstatic to have concluded the buy-back and I believe the excitement around owning our business again has been a key driver of the agency's creative and business success over the last year,” says MD Gareth Leck.

The agency was started by Leck and executive creative director Pepe Marais in 1998. Last year it was nominated as an Agency of the Year finalist by Financial Mail's AdFocus and ranked fifth at the most recent Loerie awards.

Adds Marais, “Joe Public's positioning is ‘For People. By People' and we have always believed that to be the best, you need to have the best staff. Owning our own business means we can reward those star performers appropriately and allocate equity based on performance. This in turn will have a fantastic knock-on effect in terms of the output we deliver for our clients in the long term.”

“The whole agency is renewed with energy and enthusiasm. The sky is truly our only limit,” says Leck. “This deal means we are one step closer to achieving our vision of being rated the number one home-grown South African advertising agency.”