PERSPECTIVE: Holding companies face a grim future if led by figures alone.(rumours about holding companies)

There are some fantastic rumours circulating at the moment, the full details of which would be wonderful to share if truth and libel were not such preoccupations.

Like the story this week about an agency chief and a media chief plotting to buy Cordiant. Or the one about the holding company negotiating with a London independent to rescue its ailing third-string brand. Or the holding company chief executive wanting to up sticks and join the client side because he's fed-up and frustrated by the challenges of the job.

All cracking stories, which, in the detail, make enormous sense. Some of them might even be true one day. And let's not forget the one about the holding company so embroiled in financial scandal that it's being investigated by the US Securities and Exchange Commission - just to prove that there are no stories more ridiculous than the true ones.

Now feverish speculation seems matched with an ominous sense of change ahead. There are rather too many frustrated but talented and ambitious people around for the status quo to continue. So Rupert Howell's timely feature on page 22 raises the question of the rationale for the communications supergroups. Howell argues that although the holding companies are powerhouses of talent, that talent has not been orchestrated to suit client needs.

Rather than being led by credible senior business partners sitting at the hub of this array of talent, the supergroups are orchestrated by ...