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Investor Relations Agency of the Year Sloane & Company
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By: Paul Holmes
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Sloane & Company does its best work at the intersection where the financial media, investment community and government affairs collide. Its activity on behalf of the Rainbow Media Holdings, the television and entertainment programming arm of Cablevision, illustrates the firm’s approach. The relationship tripled in size over the years, with Sloane managing complex communications assignments such as the company’s sale of Bravo Networks to NBC; its efforts to acquire the cable programming assets of Vivendi Universal; and the launch of several new television programming businesses that are at the heart of the company’s strategy to use new technology in cable and satellite to provide targeted entertainment for customers. And last year, the firm’s relationship with Cablevision brought Sloane a nice assignment working for the New York Association for Better Choices, a coalition (including Cablevision) of companies opposed to the construction of New York’s proposed West Side Stadium.
Sloane & Company provides corporate and financial communications, public affairs and investor relations support (and, increasingly crisis communications counsel) to clients ranging from Fortune 100 companies to leading niche players in a variety of markets including telecommunications, media, hospitality, technology and financial services. It pledges senior level involvement on all accounts and insists, “We only take on assignments in areas that we really know.”
Revenues for 2004 were up about 15 percent—for the second consecutive year—to around $7.3 million. New clients included Bauer Publishing, a German publisher of consummer magazines; LG.Philips LCD, a leader in manufacturing flat screen panels; Midway Games, a video game publisher majority-owned by Viacom CEO Sumner Redstone; and insurer New York Life. There was growth from existing clients such as Cablevision, Archipelago, and Gaylord Entertainment. Interesting assignments included an IPO for LG Philips, the first dual, concurrent listing for a Korean company on the Seoul and New York exchanges, and work with community groups to spearhead communications for the New York Association for Better Choices.
On the personnel side, the most significant addition was Anton Nicholas , former head of the New York office of Financial Dynamics, as managing director. With a career that includes positions with FD in London, Sard Verbinnen, and Abernathy MacGregor, Nicholas brings international M&A counseling experience and management depth.Other new hires include VP Keil Decker, formerly of Sard Verbinnen, and Monica Huang, VP and head of the IR practice, who joined from CFSB. They were attracted by a culture in which star performers can shine. Sloane doesn’t go in for a lot of touchy-feely work-life benefits—the emphasis is on hard work and client service—but the work is intellectually challenging and opportunities for advancement are incredible, in part because of a firstrate professional development program and in part because people get the chance to learn on the job.
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