Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

Here’s the latest of our bonus pod series where I chat to Andrew Bloch about PR Pitches and merger & acquisition trends in the UK PR scene.

Andrew is a co-founder and non-executive director at Frank PR and is now Head of PR at the new business consultancy firm AAR. He is also a partner at PCB Partners where he advises on buying and selling marketing services agencies.

Do take a look at the PRmoment home page for details on our latest webinars, including The intersection of Data, Insight and PR Planning.

Finally thanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.

Here’s a summary of what Andrew and I discussed:

1 min Andrew gives his rundown of new business wins, including wins for Havas, Golin, Ready 10, Frank, Stir, Finn Partners, Tin Man and Simon and Simon.

5 mins “Pitch wise it feels busier than ever… but definitely more project work (than retainers) and a slowing in terms of the decision making.”

8 mins Andrew gives us his thoughts on a year-on-year comparison of the number of PR new business briefs.

9 mins “What you tend to see is that for a lot of the big advertising briefs and big media briefs - the PR briefs follow on. I’ve got visibility on the ad world and media world and it’s crazy busy at the moment.” So maybe there are lots of PR briefs coming in the near future?

11 mins Andrew gives his M&A update with some big trade side acquisitions from Finn Partners, kyu’s acquisition of Lexington, Hill+Knowlton Strategies' acquisition of the Jeffrey Group in Latin America and WE’s acquisition of Hopscotch.