Successful closing: The Skills Group now part of the European agency group “Team Farner”

Vienna, April 27, 2023 – The Skills Group, one of Austria’s leading PR agencies for decades, its digital subsidiary datenwerk and the marketing agency All Channels Communication Austria have new proprietors. The transaction, announced in February, was successfully completed on April 24 with the closing in Zurich. The three Austrian agencies are now part of Team Farner, a rapidly growing, pan-European agency group headquartered in Switzerland. The previous Skills shareholders Jürgen Gangoly, Stefan Sengl, Jörg Wollmann and Helmut Stögerer are partners in Team Farner from now on – they invested in Farner International AG as part of the transaction.

Team Farner, which not only has taken ownership over Skills, datenwerk and All Channels but has been in possession of the local Kobza Media Group (now KTHE I Team Farner) for several months, has thus taken over market leadership in the Austrian communications market.

Farner Consulting AG, has been Switzerland’s leading communications agency for decades and ranks among the top 10 Continental European agencies. Farner, in cooperation with investment group ‘Waterland Private Equity’, have been building a new agency group, which specializes in European buy-and-build strategies, for just over a year. The goal for the coming years: to build the leading European consultancy for integrated communications, with top positions in all major markets.

In addition to Farner Consulting AG and the Austrian agencies mentioned above, Team Farner now also includes the VIM Group in the Netherlands, which specializes in brand transformation and technology; the video specialist Yoveo in Switzerland, the digital agencies Blueglass and SemSea, the NextGeneration marketing agency Jim&Jim, and the behavioral science expert team from Affective Advisory; and komm.passion (Düsseldorf) and Kirchhoff Consult (Berlin) in Germany. Currently, Team Farner unites 17 agencies at 23 locations in five countries (CH, AT, DE, NL, UK) with over 600 employees and a fee volume of around 100 million euros per year. Further acquisitions are planned in the future.

Skills Managing Director Jürgen Gangoly will set up the “Farner Academy” at European level and manage this group-internal training and further education institution in the future. Furthermore, the teams of Skills, datenwerk and All Channels Communication Austria will bring their expertise in the areas of issue management, crisis communication, sustainability (ESG), change management, digital communications and social media to the Farner team at European level.

The three new Austrian additions to Team Farner – Skills, datenwerk and All Channels Communication Austria – will continue to be managed as independent companies by the existing management and partner teams. From now on, the agencies will use “Team Farner” as a brand suffix. Skills, datenwerk and All Channels Communication Austria generated total revenues of over 5 million euros in 2022.