Stay informed with free updates
Simply sign up to the Media myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.
Matthew Freud is looking at options to sell his eponymous PR consultancy after 40 years as one of London’s top spin-doctors and corporate fixers.
Freud, who has spent decades working for celebrity clients such as Sir Jony Ive and Sir Lewis Hamilton, has hired boutique investment bank Robey Warshaw to kick off a process to find a buyer for the London-based business, according to several people with knowledge of the details.
Robey Warshaw partner and former Conservative chancellor George Osborne is leading a review that would likely see Freud remain in charge for several years to oversee the transition in the event of a sale.
Freud has hired the bank to oversee a formal process after fielding a number of unsolicited approaches, the people said.
Freud and Robey Warshaw declined to comment.
Freud became well known during the 1990s when he represented many Britpop celebrities, establishing a reputation as a fixture of London’s music and art scene. At one point he was even a co-owner of the Groucho Club, the Soho private members club.
He rose to greater prominence after marrying Rupert Murdoch’s daughter, Elisabeth, although they divorced in 2014.
A person close to Freud said he would sell only to the right buyer who would continue to devote some of the agency’s resources to good causes, as well as maintain its status as a “B Corp”, certified as meeting certain social and environmental standards.
They added that there was no certainty of a sale, but that Freud wanted to safeguard the future of his agency as he nears retirement because he “does not believe in succession” to his children.
“He wants to secure the future of something that he has spent 40 years building. If selling it was going to ruin it, he wouldn’t sell it. Finding the right home is something he is very conscious of,” the person said.
The agency generated revenues of about £48mn last year, according to company house filings, with earnings of about £12mn. A stake in larger rival FGS was sold at a multiple of about 17 times earnings last year.
Freud set up the agency in London in 1985 aged 21 with just two clients: Irish folk band Clannad and celebrity spoon-bender Uri Geller.
He has in the past admitted that he turned to PR as the rest of the famous family had covered so many other options, from his great-grandfather Sigmund, to his uncle Lucian, the painter, his sister Emma, a broadcaster, and his designer and novelist cousins Bella and Esther.
His skill has often been in bringing together his celebrity network with brands and causes, helping charity campaigns such as Red Nose Day. In the past two decades, he has moved his agency more towards representing corporate clients and causes.
The business also includes Goals House, a not-for-profit group that creates events for political figures, business leaders and entrepreneurs to try to drive progress towards the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Its other entities include financial communications firm The One Nine Three Group and brand agency Proud Robinson.
Freud has also expanded his private activities in recent years. In 2023, he opened the Bull hotel in Burford, Oxfordshire. A second hotel, The Highway Inn, launched last summer.
He also has acquired a parade of shops in the town and invested in a number of start-ups through his private office. He also won an Oscar for producing a short film animation of Charlie Mackesy’s best-selling book, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, in 2023.
Freud generated a £40mn dividend from across his businesses last year.
