Radu Florescu’s Saatchi&Saatchi Romania ends partnership with Publicis, to change name in January

Communications group Centrade, owned by brothers Iohn, Nick and Radu Florescu, will end its partnership with Publicis Groupe for the use of the Saatchi&Saatchi brand in Romania, starting January 1, 2015, the two groups announced on Tuesday. The Saatchi&Saatchi Romania advertising agency, which has been led by Radu Florescu since 1992, and all the other affiliated firms, Saatchi&Saatchi X and Saatchi&Saatchi PR, will have to find another name. Centrade is currently negotiating with other international networks for possible partnerships, but if the negotiations won’t have a positive result, they will continue as an independent agency, according to Radu Florescu, CEO of Saatchi&Saatchi Romania. He said the management team and the 70 employees of the agency will remain with him, and that he thinks he will also keep most of the clients. Publicis will continue its partnership with Centrade in the media agency Zenith Romania, in which Publicis is currently majority shareholder and the Florescu family has a minority stake. The Centrade group, founded by the Florescu brothers in the beginning of the ‘90s, is registered in the U.S. but has most of its operations in Romania. The group owns the Saatchi&Saatchi advertising agency, the Saatchi&Saatchi PR firm, the Chainsaw Europe video and sound editing firm, Kubis Interactive, digital marketing and advertising firm, and Pantone Studios movie production firm. Centrade started operations in Romania in 1992. The group imported the first TV shows from the U.S. for the Romanian television, Dallas and The Guinness Book of Records. The partnership with Saatchi&Saatchi started in 1993. Over the years, the agency has worked on promoting Michael Jackson’s visit to Romania and the launch of the first Romanian mobile communications company, Dialog/Orange. editor@romania-insider.com