Finsbury (public relations)
Finsbury is a public relations company based in London and New York that specialises in financial services clients. It is a subsidiary of British advertising and media conglomerate WPP plc. History. Finsbury was founded by Roland Rudd in 1994 as Finsbury. In 2001, the firm was sold to WPP in a deal that the "Financial Times" estimated earned Rudd £40 million. Rudd remained chairman of the company. In 2011, Finsbury merged with Robinson Lerer & Montgomery of New York. Rudd continued as chairman and Walter G. Montgomery became chief executive officer of the enlarged firm. Montgomery retired  as chief executive officer in 2014 but remains a partner in the firm. In 2014, RLM Finsbury rebranded as just Finsbury which the firm felt would underline its global ambitions. In 2021, Finsbury completed a merger and management buy-in of Finsbury, The Glover Park Group and Hering Schuppener to form Finsbury Glover Hering (FGH). WPP remains the majority owner of the group. The company provided services to Russian oligarch Andrei Skoch, helping him go after the website SuperYachtFan for reporting on his £100 million yacht. Wikipedia editing controversy. On 12 November 2012, "The Times" reported that Alisher Usmanov , a Russian billionaire who was about to launch one of the largest stock market listings in London for his MegaFon mobile phone company hired RLM Finsbury which "covertly cleaned up his online image and removed details of his past" before the offering. "The Telegraph" reported specifically that RLM Finsbury staff anonymously "deleted details of a Soviet-era criminal conviction and freedom of speech row" and then "replaced those sections with text outlining Mr Usmanov's philanthropy and art collection." According to "O'Dwyer's PR", the firm publicly apologized in "The Times", giving the following statement: "This was not done in  the proper manner nor was this approach authorized by Mr. Usmanov. We apologize for this and it will not happen again."