I mention this interesting piece of trivia because it holds a couple of keys to what happens to Grey. The advertising network has hired Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase to test a possible sale of the company, which - thanks to the flurry of trading in Grey shares that greeted the news - now carries a pretty price tag of £1.3 billion. And the politics and personalities involved means the sale will be a saga to savour.
For any purchaser, Grey represents an attractive degree of untapped potential.
There's no doubt that the company has been underplayed on the international stage. Despite its lean divisional structure, Grey lags in offering a full-bodied integrated proposition: operating margins are way below its competitors (less than 3 per cent compared with more than 14 per cent for the bigger holding companies); its media network is patchy (and falling behind its competitors by the day) and its creative reputation dull.
So news of a sale should have contenders slavering. But the P&G factor will play a crucial role in determining Grey's fate. Of the potential wooers, WPP's extensive relationship with Unilever could prove a barrier.
Unilever has gone on record to say that it would not mind co-habiting with P&G as long as there were clear blockades between the businesses; P&G, though, might not be as sanguine.
Mind you, P&G could also resist having all of its business handled by a single holding company, should Publicis (P&G's other marketing partner) throw its wallet into the ring. Certainly, P&G is said to have recently told both Meyer and Levy it wants to maintain multiple agency partners.
As for the others, a purchase on the scale of Grey would be particularly counter-cultural for Omnicom, while IPG has financial headaches aplenty to deter a bid, compounded by this week's embarrassing departure of its number-two executive, Christopher Coughlin. Havas, though in desperate need of a stronger global proposition (particularly on the media side), is debt-reducing and streamlining. And while Dentsu is a possibility, combining the Dentsu and Grey cultures would be a far from palatable mix.
Then there's the issue of Meyer himself. He holds around 20 per cent of the common shares but controls just less than 60 per cent of Grey's Class B shares, which gives him voting control. Apparently, a clause in his contract also means that Meyer does not need to sell to an outsider in order to cash in; he has the option to sell his stock back to Grey at the current market value.
Yet the very fact that a "for sale" sign has been hung over Grey so publicly and so early in the process suggests that an outside bidder is the favoured route. It suggests, too, that some of the more obvious candidates may have already baulked at the price, making the notion of a bid from a private equity company or investor from outside the usual marketing services arena a very real prospect.
Interestingly, the 77-year-old Meyer has just twiddled with his pension package, which now stands at $82,000-a-month plus a $5,000-a-month consultancy fee, office, "dining services", cars, drivers and secretaries. Whatever happens, Meyer's presence will continue to be felt at Grey for many years to come.
- Caroline Marshall is away.
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