The Frame Store, one of London’s leading post-production houses, has
moved quickly this week to clarify press stories about its relationship
with Maurice Saatchi and Josephine Hart’s new company, Megalomedia.
Megalomedia was unveiled as the tongue-in-cheek new name for Graduate
Appointments, the recruitment company majority-owned by Hart which
Saatchi chairs. At the same time, the company acquired shares in both
the Frame Store and Forward Publishing, previously owned by the
investment company, Landau Enterprises.
Landau, whose investors include the likes of Maurice and Charles
Saatchi, Mick Jagger and Ahmet Ertegun (the founder of Atlantic
Records), held a 40 per cent share in the Frame Store. The remaining 60
per cent of shares continue to be held by the founders and managers of
the Frame Store.
The Frame Store’s managing director, Sharon Reed, said: ‘In view of the
publicity attending the recently announced transaction, I should
emphasise that our commercial relationship to date has been entirely
with Landau itself, not with its shareholders. Over the five years of
Landau’s involvement, we have never traded with, met, nor indeed had any
contact with, its individual investors.’
Forward, the contract publishing company run by William Sieghart and
Neil Mendoza, is best known for publishing magazines for the likes of
NatWest, Gallaher and Marks and Spencer. Earlier this year, it launched
a joint venture contract publishing company with Conde Nast.
Megalomedia is expected to make further acquisitions in the media
services area shortly.
