Cordiant ousts two of City's top spin doctors

Two of the City of London's top spin doctors have been ousted from Financial Dynamics, one of the City's biggest financial public relations firms.

Nick Miles and Hugh Morrison, two of the most senior managers at the agency, have been put on notice under the terms of their contracts, though they have in effect left the business already.

Cordiant, the advertising group that bought Financial Dynamics in May 2000, declined to give any reason for the decision saying the matter was being handled by lawyers. But insiders say it is in effect a cost-cutting move as Cordiant seeks to lower expenses as a result of the media downturn.

Cordiant, which was demerged from Saatchi & Saatchi four years ago and owns the Bates Worldwide advertising agency, has been hit by a series of profits warnings and has laid off 1,100 staff.

Hugh Morrison was a group managing director of BCI, the holding company created by Cordiant to spearhead the expansion of its communications interests across Europe. Mr Miles was also a key player in BCI as well as Financial Dynamics. Cordiant has decided to in effect disband BCI and strip out the layer of management working directly for it.

One PR insider said the duo might have fallen out with Cordiant over internal incentives. It is thought that Mr Miles and Mr Morrison had been pushing Cordiant to introduce a fresh incentive plan for staff following the takeover by Cordiant without success.

The departure of Mr Miles and Mr Morrison is a blow for Financial Dynamics as they are two of the agency's biggest winners of new business. Its clients include Carnival Corporation, CGNU, Shire Pharmaceuticals, LVMH and Liffe. However, in the past 18 months it has lost FTSE 100 clients including Tesco, Cadbury Schweppes and Kingfisher.

It is not clear who will take over the running of Financial Dynamics, which competes with rivals including Brunswick and the WPP-owned Finsbury for top PR business.

Cordiant acquired Financial Dynamics as part of its £349m takeover of Lighthouse Global Networks, an American business, in May 2000. It has been suggested that Cordiant will have to write down the value of Lighthouse as a result of the media downturn.