Established Manchester agencies, Refinery and Oakbase have announced their merger.
The new entity will fall under the Refinery name, with the Oakbase brand ceasing to exist from the end of the year.
“I’m absolutely delighted to have been able to do this deal; it provides the clients of both agencies with greater resource and a lot of additional services,” explained Nick Bradshaw, CEO of Oakbase, who now becomes CEO of the Refinery group.
“We are now one of the largest, integrated agencies in Manchester, and the deal means we can add significant scale to the wealth of experience that the senior management teams bring with them.”
Refinery’s MD, Nigel Papworth (pictured) will be retiring.
The new group will operate out of Refinery’s existing offices in Manchester.
In 2018, Refinery was named 20th in Prolific North’s Top 50 Integrated Agencies list while Oakbase was 37th. At the time, the two agencies had a combined staff of more than a hundred.
