TRIBCO RESCUES FENN
By Adnews Staff
Marshall Fenn in Toronto is being run as a tighter ship in order to stay afloat after almost foundering on the shoals of financial failure. The owners of the advertising and public relations firm recently shut down Marshall Fenn Ltd. and opened up Marshall Fenn Communications. Tribco Ltd., a company that the old MF once owned a piece of, now has a large share of the new MF. The other two owners are Paul Chater and Jim Kabrajee. Recently Tribco bought up MF's bank debt and other obligations to secured creditors, and then foreclosed on the agency. Tribco sent out a notice to creditors that it had seized $93,149 worth of assets from MF, which had debts of $342,649 as of Jan. 22 this year, and said there was no money left for preferred and unsecured creditors. However, Tribco president Howard Pearl told Adnews Friday that all media have been paid. Some unsecured creditors were out of luck but "we paid out what we could," said Pearl. He said he made the investment in Fenn because he felt the company had good advertising and public relations talent, but it needed the financial and administrative discipline he could impose. He described Fenn as "a little company that grew faster than its underpinnings could support." Early in 1995 Fenn bought 50% of a direct marketing division of Tribco, but Tribco took it back a short time later. Ten-year-old Tribco is both a holding company and an operating firm in the fields of marketing, advertising and related services. Pearl says he expects have sales of $17 to $20 million this year.