Kenyan advertising tycoon Bharat Thakrar resigns from WPP Scangroup

WPP Scangroup has announced that its founder has resigned from his position as a board member and a director in its subsidiaries and affiliates. Earlier, Bharat Thakrar also stepped down from his role as CEO.

In February 2021, Hapa Kenya reported, the board announced that it had suspended the CEO alongside CFO Satyabrata Das to “allow for an investigation into allegations of gross misconduct and possible offences in their capacity as senior executives and employees of the company.”

Although the company withheld the details of the allegations, its shares on the Nairobi Stock Exchange plunged by more than 7 percent following the announcement, Reuters reported.

Meanwhile, the board delegated authority to its Chief Operating Officer Alec Graham to act as interim CEO. It is currently in the process of recruiting a new CEO.

Thakrar is a Kenyan multimillionaire businessman. In 1982, he established Scanad, which later became Scangroup and then WPP Scangroup in 2013, when he and other shareholders ceded a controlling stake in the business to the British multinational advertising and public relations company, WPP.

WPP Scangroup is one of the largest integrated marketing communications companies in Sub-Saharan Africa, with subsidiaries operating in 25 countries. Its core operations are in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

As of 2018, the company had generated about $45.04 million in revenue and recorded over $142.68 million in asset valuation.