“BLOODY Martin Sorrell!” These are almost the first words that fly out of Doug Flynn’s mouth when we meet at the trendy Portman Square headquarters of Aegis, the £1.3 billion marketing group he heads.

Flynn belly-laughs and adds that he is “joking” and that the man he calls “an expert at the non-bid” is “nice” really. The two are on perfectly civil terms but there is no doubt that Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of the advertising giant WPP, has become a fly in Flynn’s ointment.

It all started on July 19 with French advertising group Havas’ 541p-a-share bid for Tempus – Aegis’ only independent rival and a company in which WPP has a 22pc stake. Before Flynn knew it, the presumed forces of consolidation had written off Aegis’ independent future.

The bid speculation was only heightened when Sorrell tabled a 555p-a-share counter-bid for Tempus – which some immediately saw as a tactic to win more French cash for his 16.5m Tempus shares before going for Aegis.

“Aegis would rather remain independent and continue to press ahead. We have the foundations for strong growth over the next five years – at least as fast as the fastest-growing ad agency conglomerates.” He adds the required spiel about doing the best for shareholders, although it is quite clear that this uncompromising Australian is not ready to be gobbled up yet.

After all, Flynn has been here before. In 1989, the Tasmanian newspaper group he headed was taken over by that other bid-meister, Rupert Murdoch. Despite finding Tasmania just a little too sleepy (“I don’t do quiet very well”), Flynn chose to stay on.

Five years later, he was sent to London as deputy managing director of News International’s print empire under Murdoch’s chief henchman, Les Hinton.

By 1998, he had manoeuvred himself into a non-executive directorship at Aegis with the clear understanding that he would get the top job once the incumbent, Crispin Davis, moved on. Rumours flew that Flynn had been sidelined by the Murdoch mafia. Then Davis went to save Reed Elsevier from disaster, and Flynn was in.

Of his Murdoch years, the Aegis chief executive says carefully: “It was fine. There were always frustrating moments and the company is Rupert Murdoch.”

So does he want Aegis to be Doug Flynn? He is far too media-savvy to say so directly: “A lot of chief executives enjoy the notoriety but I come from the other side of the business and I used to see guys setting themselves up for a hiding,” he says. This experience makes him a difficult interviewee – jumping on and off the record and trying to “do deals” over which quotes I will use.

Behind the rhetoric, it is clear that Flynn sees leading a bunch of media buyers as his route to corporate greatness, and he is not going to let niceties such as committee meetings get in the way.

“Running businesses is not about democracy. You can build up to a level of consensus and listen, but at the end of the day you have to make a decision,” Flynn tells me. I sense this is a polite version of what happens at Aegis.

Flynn is desperate to sell me his vision of a global group which buys media slots for Pfizer and Renault and then “bolts on” services such as market research, public relations and events marketing.

When I tell him that this sounds like a smaller version of WPP or Omnicom, he gets annoyed and moves into full-on marketing-speak, spraying me with phrases such as “executional and advisory services” and “brand equity”.

And he hits out at the ad world, which he sees as “incredibly immune to methods of working which might improve its efficiency”. Defending himself against the Sorrell spectre is obviously taking its toll.

Flynn admits that his best defence would be “our company’s performance, and it’s a difficult year to demonstrate a great performance”. The glory days of 1999 and 2000 saw Aegis’ shares soar 70pc to a peak of 255p.

Since then they have rattled back down, and in the most dramatic advertising slowdown even older ad-men can recall, are 114p. Trading in May was “dire” and June was “relatively better, but not fantastic”, Flynn says, his small eyes narrowing darkly.

His jovial Aussie charm has been further strained by a “disastrous Cowes Week” earlier this month, which he is “trying to forget”. His boat, named Kirribilli after the peninsula that juts into Sydney Harbour, came 24th overall and 10th in the Fastnet race (surely a much better name for an internet business than a rock off Ireland). It’s as if his Cowes disappointment has made him even more determined to see WPP off.

Sailing is Flynn’s passion. He recounts with glee a weekend regatta with his two sons, aged 13 and 14, one of whom is over six-foot while the other is short. The younger boy, Alex, “has just blonded his hair and had his T-shirt sleeves rolled up, a medal around his neck, a tattoo and shades – he looked seriously cool!”.

I am not sure that fellow Dulwich College parents would share his view. Like young Alex, Flynn obviously enjoys playing up the bloke-ish Australian ex-pat in leafy London SE21, where he lives in “a big Victorian place” and is picked up every morning by a chauffeur.

Flynn says: “I was a bit overawed by the cultural refinement when I first arrived in the UK and it took me quite a while to become completely relaxed in the institution that is Britain, whether it’s going to Glyndebourne or whatever. Now I’m exactly like I was in Australia.”

A few moments later, we are swapping public infrastructure nightmares. “What a joke Heathrow airport is – it’s a disgrace!” Flynn says, sounding frighteningly English for a split second.

Walking back across Portman Square after lunch at his club, Flynn tells me that he recently raced a 34-year-old colleague around the square for £200.

In the opening straight, the younger runner fell as he tried to outmanoeuvre his boss by forcing him into the back of two passers-by. Flynn saw his chance and, leaving the man sprawled on the pavement, he raced towards the finish line in front of the assembled Aegis staff.

When I protest at this Bad Samaritan behaviour, he tells me that the money went straight to charity and adds: “I went to help him afterwards!” Sorrell may not be so generous.

SOURCE FROM: The Telegraph (每日电讯报)