WPP crushes Kenyan entrepreneur Bharat Thakrar's bid to reclaim Scangroup at AGM

WPP Plc has used its controlling stake in WPP Scangroup to crush a boardroom revolt mounted by the Nairobi Securities Exchange-listed marketing firm's founder and former chief executive Bharat Thakrar, defeating every resolution the minority shareholder group had proposed at Monday's annual general meeting.

Thakrar had rallied fellow minority investors to remove the company's entire current board and replace them with a slate of new directors headed by himself, arguing that years of underperformance and declining shareholder value required a fundamental leadership overhaul. The plan failed completely when WPP Plc voted its 243.1 million shares, representing a 56.26 percent controlling stake, against every proposed resolution. The Thakrar group's combined holding of 63.5 million shares was never going to be sufficient to override the British multinational's dominant position.

Thakrar proposed removing nine sitting directors — Richard Omwela, Akua Brayie Owusu-Nartey, Beverley Spencer-Obatoyinbo, Peter Kimurwa, Patricia Kiwanuka, Kagiso Musi, Nick Douglas, Manuel Segimon and Tebogo Skwambane — and replacing them with himself, Andrew John Laird White, Carl Adam Ogola, Kunal Kamlesh Bid and his son Rishab Bharat Thakrar. The group had also sought to appoint a new chairman and chief executive at the board's first meeting, signalling the urgency and ambition of what they were attempting.

WPP's vote against the proposals also extended to blocking the minority group's attempt to defeat standard agenda items, including the approval of the directors' remuneration report. Having voted down the revolt, WPP's shareholding was sufficient to carry the normal resolutions comfortably.

Thakrar acknowledged after the vote that the confrontation was intended to express shareholder dissatisfaction with how the company has been managed rather than as a realistic expectation of victory against WPP's block vote. Scangroup posted a net loss of 713.6 million Kenyan shillings in the year ended December 2025, a steep deterioration from the net profits of as much as 867.3 million shillings the company generated at its peak in the year to December 2013. The company has cited increased competition, loss of key customers and disruption of the marketing industry by artificial intelligence as contributing factors.

Thakrar holds a 10.48 percent stake in Scangroup amounting to 45.3 million shares. His allies include Ogola with 1.46 percent and Bid with 0.58 percent. Other retail investors provided additional but ultimately insufficient support. At the current share price, the market value of Thakrar's personal Scangroup holdings stands at approximately 96.5 million shillings, a fraction of the more than 1 billion shillings his stake was worth at its peak.

The story of Bharat Thakrar and Scangroup is one of the most dramatic reversals in East African corporate history. Thakrar founded Scangroup and built it into the dominant marketing and communications group across sub-Saharan Africa, taking it public on the Nairobi Securities Exchange on August 29, 2006, through an initial public offering that raised 94 million shillings. At the time of the IPO, he was the top shareholder with a 28.53 percent stake, a position he progressively reduced over the years.

His tenure ended abruptly. On February 18, 2021, Scangroup suspended Thakrar as chief executive alongside then-chief financial officer Satyabrata Das on grounds of alleged gross misconduct. The specific allegations were never made public. Thakrar resigned on March 23, 2021, with Das following on May 10. A probe commissioned by Scangroup subsequently found no incriminating evidence against either man, a conclusion that did not restore either to their positions and left Thakrar as a significant but powerless minority shareholder in the company he had built.

WPP Plc accumulated its controlling position through a combination of direct share purchases and the folding of its African subsidiaries into the Scangroup structure over a period of years, progressively increasing its stake to the current 56.26 percent that now determines every contested vote outcome at the company.

The defeat at Monday's AGM closes the latest chapter in what has become a prolonged and public dispute between the company's founder and the British parent that controls it. Whether Thakrar pursues further legal or governance challenges to the current board's management of the company will determine how the next chapter unfolds.