Public Relations: Nuffer Gets Assets, Combines Staff
Local public relations firms Nuffer, Smith, Tucker, Inc. and Stock/Alper & Associates are merging next week, with Nuffer paying an undisclosed amount for a share of Stock/Alper’s assets.
As of Oct. 1, Stock/Alper staff will move into Nuffer’s offices in Bankers Hill, and will operate under the Nuffer, Smith, Tucker name, said Bill Trumpfheller, Nuffer’s president.
According to Micki Stockalper, who founded her firm in 1985, the move frees her from administrative hassles of running an agency.
“I’ve been lucky because I’ve had a lot of long-term employees who have always shared part of that burden, but it just came to a point for me where I was ready not to be the sole boss anymore,” Stockalper said.
She’ll continue working with clients she’s been actively involved with, Stockalper said.
At Nuffer, Stockalper will take on an “of counsel” role, Trumpfheller said.
In merging the companies, Nuffer will now have their major consumer brand and agriculture clients such as the WD-40 Co., McDonald’s, the Dairy Council, Chicken of the Sea and Stock/Alper’s St. Joseph’s Hospital and Mission Hospital, both in Orange County.
Along with its work with health care clients, Stock/Alper has also focused on professional services. It represents several local law firms, Trumpfheller said.
“It could be a good mix of talent and a good mix of clients,” said Tom Gable, chairman and CEO of the Gable Group, another longtime San Diego PR firm.
According to Gable, both companies are highly regarded.
“(Nuffer chairman) Dave Nuffer has had a really good reputation and a really good practice in San Diego for some time, and so has Micki Stockalper,” he said.
Neither Trumpfheller nor Stockalper would go into detail about how much Nuffer paid, nor the percentage Nuffer bought of Stock/Alper & Associates.
“We’ve got what amounts to a fairly complicated financial structure, but there is a way she’s being compensated,” Trumpfheller said.
On the San Diego Business Journal’s audited listing of PR agencies, Nuffer, Smith, Tucker ranked seventh with an adjusted gross income of $2,226,000 in 2000. Stock/Alper & Associates ranked 10th with an income of $1,734,000.
Nuffer currently has 27 employees in San Diego, and one who works out of Sacramento. Stock/Alper has five employees.
Talks between the two companies have gone on for years, Trumpfheller said. The current discussion began six months ago and went into serious negotiations in August, he said.
Stockalper said she has a 15-year friendship with Trumpfheller and, through professional circles, has long been acquainted with David Nuffer and CEO Kerry Tucker.
Stockalper said she’s never talked to another agency other than Nuffer, Smith, Tucker about taking over her company.
“We always felt philosophically we had the same ideas about client service and we had the same ideas about employees and we had the same ideas about the way things should be done,” she said.
Her company, which works out of Hillcrest, will be able to vacate their offices easily, Stockalper said. They’ve been on a month-to-month lease since April.
Nuffer’s current lease is up at the beginning of the year, so they’ll be looking for new space, Trumpfheller said. Until then, it’ll be crowded.
“We’re going to be sitting on each other’s laps for a while,” Trumpfheller said.
According to Gable, the challenges to any merger involve the agencies’ own operating cultures and systems to manage the client service and other parts of the practice , and how those things come together.
The fact that the merger is taking place is no surprise because there have been a lot of similar deals throughout the country, he said.
“If you follow the news in PR Week and the Holmes Report and some of the other industry trades, there were a series of purchases in ’99 and 2000, less so in 2001 and so there looks like there’s going to be probably an increase in mergers in 2001 and 2002,” Gable said.
