Harrod & Mirlin of Toronto has been bought by True North Communications, the American parent company of FCB Canada and Optimedia.

The deal gives True North 100% ownership, although Harrod & Mirlin continues to operate independently with Brian Harrod, vice-president, executive creative director and Ian Mirlin, president, remaining to head the agency.

h&m was established in 1987 with backing by New York-based Interpublic Group.

The agency bought out ipg in mid-1994 but with free trade, the agency’s principals felt h&m couldn’t effectively serve all of its clients as a standalone Canadian entity.

‘The border is coming down and a lot of Canadian clients are looking for access to the u.s. now,’ says Harrod.

‘You need to know what’s going on there and if clients have u.s. media needs, you have to have the facilities to do that.’

Last year h&m was approached by four different agencies looking to buy it.

Harrod says his biggest concern during negotiations was making the best deal for the agency’s clients and staff.

He says the hands-off approach of True North, and the fact that h&m shares clients with some of the network’s other agencies, made the arrangement appealing.

For example, fcb handles Levi Strauss and Nabisco. In Canada, h&m handles Levi Strauss and Nabisco division Christie Brown.

h&m clients also include Quaker Oats, CPC Specialty Foods, Mead Johnson, Canadian Pacific Hotels, Corby Distillers and Moosehead Breweries.

True North has operations in 60 countries with combined billings of us$7.5 billion.

The acquisition of h&m, which bills us$42 million annually, brings its combined Canadian billings to us$162 million.

h&m is the third in a string of independent creative agencies acquired by True North in the last few years.

It owns Bayer Bess Vanderwarker of Chicago and Borders Perrin & Norrander which has offices in Seattle, Wash. and Portland, Ore.

This is in addition to three networks: Foote Cone & Belding in North America, Publicis-FCB in Europe and Mojo in the Pacific.