Lloyd Northover splits offices in Media Square restructure

Consultancy Lloyd Northover’s UK operation is to split across two sites as part of a wider restructure by parent company Media Square.

The consultancy is leaving its office in Great Pulteney Street, with the brand communications staff moving to an office in Curtain Road in Shoreditch, to share space with Media Square research consultancy Illuminas.

Brand experience staff will move to Marlow to share office space with packaging consultancy Holmes & Marchant, also owned by Media Square.

The move, which will take place this week, comes as Media Square announces the scrapping of its previous divisional structure, which could see the group’s design consultancies united under one umbrella brand.

David Worthington, chairman of Lloyd Northover Group, who was previously chairman of Media Square’s design division, says, ‘It has always been my intention to get all the businesses under one umbrella.

What would be wonderful would be to get really efficient branding, retail, experiential and packaging offers in one or two more geographical locations.’

Worthington says he does not know what form this brand might take, or whether or not it might use an existing consultancy’s identity.

Last year, Lloyd Northover rebranded, one aspect of which, says Worthington, was to highlight the potential of the name LN to be used ‘colloquially’.

The consultancy has offices in London, Barcelona, Dubai, Hong Kong and Singapore, and is about to open a satellite office in Shanghai.

As well as Lloyd Northover and Holmes & Marchant, Media Square also owns Arken, based in Suffolk, which designs pointof- sale material, and Leeds- and Milton Keynes-based photography specialist Four Ninety, which has absorbed fellow Media Square consultancy Symmetry.

Worthington describes his new role under the restructure as ‘going back to the coalface’, adding that he will still have responsibility for all Media Square’s design groups.

Media Square unveiled its preliminary results for the 12 months ending February 2009, which showed a 44 per cent increase in headline operating profit. Roger Parry, executive chairman of Media Square, says the results are ‘mostly due to cost savings’. ‘Job cuts were based on efficiencies,’ he adds.

MEDIA SQUARE KEY CHANGES – Lloyd Northover to leave its London offices and split across two sites as Media Square aims to reduce its property portfolio – The scrapping of Media Square’s divisional structure, which could see the group’s design consultancies come together under one umbrella brand – Design division chairman David Worthington moving to become chairman of Lloyd Northover Group, but retaining responsibility for the Media Square’s other design consultancies