Minority shareholders of WPP Scangroup voted for board change at the company’s AGM on Monday. WPP Plc blocked every resolution.
Of the 432,155,185 shares eligible to vote, 306,664,160 participated, a turnout of 70.96% across 976 registered voters. On the three board change resolutions under Agenda 8, 63,501,851 shares — just over 20.7% of votes cast — backed the removal of directors. Every one of those votes came from independent shareholders. WPP Plc’s 243,109,708 shares voted against, and the resolutions failed.
The numbers in reverse: more than 99% of the independent shares cast supported the resolutions. WPP’s block, representing 79.29% of total votes cast, defeated them.
Thakrar, who led the requisition campaign, framed the result in a statement published after the meeting.
“The outcome was never in doubt. But the arithmetic was never the point,” he wrote. “Of the roughly 63.5 million independent shares that voted, more than 99% were cast in favour of change. WPP did not defeat a divided minority. It overruled a near-unanimous one.”
We “lost” the WPP Scangroup vote today. But strip out WPP’s own 56.26% block, and more than 99% of independent shareholders voted to remove the board. WPP didn’t defeat a divided minority — it overruled a near-unanimous one. 👇 #WPPScangroup @WPP pic.twitter.com/gOSRkZyi9X
— Bharat Thakrar (@bharatthakrar) June 8, 2026
The Goldman Sachs Factor
Thakrar drew a direct line between the situation in Nairobi and WPP Plc’s standing in London. “Last week Goldman Sachs put a ‘sell’ on WPP, citing the need to reshape its portfolio,” he wrote. “Confidence in the parent is faltering in London, even as it tightens its grip in Kenya.”
Scangroup extended a long-term loan of approximately KSh1.2 billion to WPP Group Services, a wholly owned WPP Plc subsidiary, at 5% per annum. Thakrar’s statement frames it as: “A loss-making subsidiary lent KSh1.2 billion to that parent at 5% while its own shareholders received nothing.”
Average deposit rates stood at 6.86% and lending rates at 16.85%. With cash and equivalents at only KSh864 million at year-end, the loan represents a material related-party exposure the minority shareholders say has not been adequately disclosed or justified.
What the Minority Demanded
The requisition targeted all nine sitting directors including Chairman Richard Omwela and Group CEO Akua Brayie Owusu-Nartey. Five replacement directors were proposed, led by Thakrar alongside his son Rishab Thakrar, former Executive Creative Director Andrew White, businessman Carl Adam Ogola, and Bid Securities founder Kunal Kamlesh Bid.
Under WPP Scangroup’s articles of association, shareholders controlling at least 10% of issued capital can demand a general meeting. The Thakrars’ 10.48% stake met that threshold.
The Board Replaced Three Directors Before the Vote
On May 13, 2026, two days before the AGM notice, the board confirmed the retirement of Jon Eggar, Patou Nuytemans, and Shahid Sadiq — all three named in Thakrar’s removal resolutions. In their place, the board appointed Kagiso Musi, Manuel Segimon, and Nick Douglas, Group Finance Director at WPP Plc itself. All three were then re-appointed at the AGM with approximately 79.6% of votes — WPP’s block in effect ratifying its own appointments.
Douglas’s appointment to the board of a listed subsidiary in which WPP Plc holds a controlling stake raised an immediate governance concern among the minority shareholders, given their existing argument that the board functioned as a rubber stamp for the majority shareholder.
Clients Who Left
The requisitionists named KCB, Equity Bank, NCBA, and Airtel Africa among accounts lost since 2021. The Airtel Africa exit, disclosed in May 2025, terminated a 15-year relationship that the minority shareholders allege accounted for approximately 24% of group revenues. Airtel moved its business to Publicis Groupe Africa and The Partnership, a firm founded by three former Scangroup executives.
The Regional Retreat
WPP Scangroup divested its South African public relations business and closed advertising and PR operations in Nigeria and Tanzania. The minority shareholders describe these exits as a reduction of the company’s Pan-African footprint at precisely the moment when regional scale matters most to multinational clients.
What the Vote Produced
The result was predetermined. WPP Plc, through Cavendish Square Holding BV and Ogilvy South Africa, controls approximately 56% of issued share capital. On a straight vote, WPP defeats every single resolution.
The poll — conducted by Image Registrars Ltd and audited by FEKAN Howell LLP — shows 63.5 million independent shares backing board removal against 243.1 million opposing votes. That record now sits in the public domain.
Thakrar closed his statement, “This was never about the math. It was about holding those who manage other people’s money accountable. That work continues.”
