Crisis-hit marketing group Next 15 approached about £200m break-up

A London-listed marketing conglomerate which sacked three of its top executives this week has been approached about a £200m break-up.

Sky News has learnt that Next 15 has been holding talks about a sale of its "legacy" assets, which include the financial public relations agency MHP, with an unnamed bidder. That would leave the rump of the business focused on technology and data-driven client businesses.

One industry source said the prospective buyer was believed to be a private equity firm. Next 15 issued a profit warning and changed its leadership this week as it disclosed "potential serious misconduct" related to Mach49, a Silicon Valley advisory business it owns.

"As a consequence, Next 15 has terminated the employment of three members of the senior management at Mach49 - Linda Yates, Russ Lampert and Paul Holland. David Charpie, currently co-CEO of Mach49, will become sole CEO with immediate effect," it said in a stock exchange statement on Wednesday.

"Next 15, on behalf of Mach49, is in the process of reporting the matters to relevant law enforcement agencies. "It is too early to know the outcome, but Next 15 will ensure that full co-operation is provided to those agencies." The company, which has a market value of about £210m after seeing its stock slump by nearly 75% over the last year.

It also announced this week that Tim Dyson, its chief executive for over three decades, would retire and be replaced by Sam Knights, the boss of Shopper Media Group, a subsidiary of Next 15. A person close to Next 15 insisted that any potential break-up would reflect the "simplification strategy" to which it had publicly alluded.

Next 15 declined to comment on the approach for some of its assets, which are also thought to include the creative agency Elvis and Outcast, another PR firm..