essence BCW gets folded under BCW Malaysia after 20 years

Burson Cohn & Wolfe Malaysia (BCW) has folded essence BCW under its brand, following the completion of BCW's acquisition of essence BCW. Both brands will be retained and maintain separate legal entities and secure safeguards where potential conflicts exist. The merged entity will be led by MD and current BCW Malaysia market leader Kiersten Chaik (pictured), who will continue to report to Matt Stafford, BCW's APAC president.

According to Stafford, the decision to integrate comes at "a crucial time for companies in Malaysia" as they work to identify the communications solutions needed to navigate their recovery, both economic and reputational, following COVID-19. "I am confident the team will succeed in the market by creating innovative solutions for clients that truly move people and deliver measurable business impact," he added.

Meanwhile, former CEO of essence BCW Felix Heinimann left the company in August last year after the divestment to form Essential Business Malaysia, according to his LinkedIn. He founded Essence Communications in 2001 and saw the entity merge with Burson-Marsteller in July 2013 to form essence Burson-Marsteller. It was later renamed essence BCW when WPP merged Burson-Marsteller and Cohn & Wolfe in 2018. At the same time, essence BCW's MD Elliza Abdul-Rahim will be departing this month to pursue a new opportunity.

BCW's spokesperson told A+M that with the completion of the acquisition, the timing is ideal to bring the highly complementary skillsets of the two businesses together as a single operation under Chaik’s leadership. "We now have many more resources working together to attack growing market opportunities in Malaysia," the spokesperson added but declined to comment on the monetary value of the acquisition.

The decision to merge the two PR agencies three years ago was driven by "strong, compatible capabilities and expertise, a combined ability to deliver integrated solutions across multiple sectors and the scale to compete with the largest communications agencies in the world", former WPP CEO Martin Sorrell said previously. 

Two years later, BCW merged its operations with Hill+Knowlton Strategies in South Korea, with the combined business operating under the H+K Korea brand and led by HS Chung, president, H+K Asia. H+K said the decision to integrate was made due to clear synergies between the agencies across corporate and marketing communications, government and public affairs, issues management and consumer technologies. The combined business offers in-house social and content teams, and a production and studio function.

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