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As the founder and head of the world's largest agency holding company (JWT, Ogilvy & Mather and Young & Rubicam are among its brands), Sorrell's exit would be geologic in scale. Before he became the king of agency acquisitions he was the finance director at Saatchi & Saatchi -- in 1975. In 1986 he acquired control of Wire & Plastic Products, a maker of shopping carts and baskets, and used that as an acquisition vehicle to buy Madison Avenue's biggest brands, famously besting David Ogilvy in a hostile takeover for his agency in 1989. (WPP still has a unit that sells stuff made of wire and plastic.)