Maurice Saatchi, Baron Saatchi
Maurice Nathan Saatchi, Baron Saatchi ( ; born 21 June 1946) is a British businessman, and with his brother, Charles, co-founder of the advertising agencies Saatchi & Saatchi and M&C Saatchi. Early life Maurice Saatchi is the third of four sons born to Nathan Saatchi and Daisy Ezer, a wealthy Jewish family in Baghdad, Iraq. Maurice's brothers are David (born 1937), Charles Nathan (born 1943) and Philip (born 1953). Nathan was a successful textile merchant, and in 1947 he pre-empted a flight that tens of thousands of Iraqi Jews would soon make to avoid persecution and relocated his family to Finchley in London. Nathan purchased two textile mills in north London and after a time re-built a thriving business. Eventually the family would settle into a house with eight bedrooms on Hampstead Lane in Highgate. Saatchi attended Tollington Grammar School and graduated from the London School of Economics with a first class honours degree in Sociology in 1967. His first job was at Haymarket Publications where Maurice would form valuable relationships with Michael Heseltine, the group managing director and with staff at the Haymarket's leading trade weekly for the ad industry Campaign. He spent three years at Haymarket as creative director before leaving to join his brother Charles' fledgling ad agency. Career Saatchi and Saatchi In 1970, Saatchi, with his brother, formed the advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi. They are credited with a number of successful advertising campaigns, most notably the "Labour isn't working" posters on behalf of the Conservative Party for the 1979 British general election and advertisements for the cigarette brand Silk Cut. Maurice Saatchi served as chairman of the firm which by 1986 – following its acquisition of advertising firm Ted Bates – had grown to be the largest ad agency in the world, with over 600 offices. M&C Saatchi At the turn of 1995, in the fallout from a shareholder revolt, Saatchi and his brother left the agency, and together founded the rival M&C Saatchi agency, taking with them many of their management and creative staff, as well as a number of clients – including British Airways. The new company has also been described as a success. In mid 2019 M&C Saatchi PLC - a public company listed on the AIM exchange - reported to the City some accounting irregularities which would cause the company to take a charge lowering its 2018 and 2019 results. By the time the matter was finalised in December 2019 following a PricewaterhouseCoopers review, the accounting issues were quantified at £11.6M. Over the course of 2019 the company's share price took a significant tumble from near £4 down to 79p. Then in a shock announcement to the City on 10 December Saatchi resigned as an executive director along with all three of the independent non-executive directors – Sir Michael Peat, Baron Dobbs and Lorna Tilbian. It was reported that the departing directors disagreed over whether David Kershaw, one of Saatchi's co-founders of the company should stay as CEO following the accounting