Close-Up: Live Issue - Has WPP been good for the industry?(management of WPP Group PLC)

Critics argue that it slashes prices and curtails creativity. Are they right, Emma Barns asks.

Starting out 20 years ago with a share price of just 28 pence, there is no questioning that Sir Martin Sorrell's WPP empire experienced enviable success. Its revenues are now pounds 4.3 billion and it has a share price of 577 pence. However, apart from lining its shareholders' pockets, has WPP made a contribution to the UK ad industry as a whole?

Over recent years, WPP has helped shape the global ad scene. Since 2000, its acquisitions have included Young & Rubicam, Cordiant Communications and earlier this year, Grey Global Group, which it bought for pounds 845 million. It employs 84,000 staff in 106 countries and its first-quarter revenues were up 16 per cent.

In 2004, this translated into the year's biggest new-business wins. HSBC and Samsung consolidated their communications accounts, worth a combined pounds 450 million, into WPP. And as the only UK-headquartered holding company, WPP puts London firmly on the map of global power.

Bob Willott, the editor of Marketing Services Financial Intelligence, adds: 'It's important for the aspirations of entrepreneurs in the British industry to have a communications group such as WPP on the stock market. It shows them that there are ways forward other than just selling out. And we could do with more publicly listed communications companies.'

But what about the work?

WPP has been a key player in global consolidation. Global advertising and strong creative work are not frequent bedfellows. When WPP secures a global account, the work, more often than not, will move out of local agencies perhaps better-positioned to push the creative boundaries.