Rodney Fitch Design takes control at Wickens Tutt

Rodney Fitch Design Consultants has taken a majority stake in Wickens Tutt Southgate, after negotiations lasting four months.

The deal, predicted in Marketing Week (September 9), results in RFDC founder Rodney Fitch joining the WTS board, although the two companies will continue to operate separately. A spokeswoman for WTS refuses to say how much RFDC has paid.

WTS, founded in 1989 by Paul Southgate, Mark Wickens and Simon Rhind Tutt (who has now left), was a breakaway from the Michael Peters Group and is known for applying advertising planning principles to design. Its most famous work is the Tango design for Britvic, but other clients include Kraft Jacobs Suchard, Gossard, Seagram and SmithKline Beecham.

Despite its client list, insiders say the company has never been profitable and suggest that it has been looking for a cash injection for some time.

WTS admitted in September it had been in talks with a number of advertising and marketing services groups, including Princedale, WPP and Leagas Delaney.

RFDC (not to be confused with Fitch, the publicly-quoted design consultancy which Rodney Fitch founded but later left) is part-owned by Richard Branson’s Virgin Group. It is regarded by the design industry as effectively Virgin’s in-house designer. The agency’s most recent Virgin project is the new livery for the Virgin Express short-haul airline.

It is understood that one of the main reasons the WTS deal was so protracted was the involvement of Virgin Group lawyers.