FTIL hires APCO affiliate for PR

Ties with Ahmedabad-based Aakriti date back to May 2014, says FTIL; adds no direct or indirect relationship with APCO Worldwide

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Financial Technologies (FTIL) has hired the services of Aakriti Promotions and Media, an Ahmedabad-based brand solutions and public relations firm. Headed by senior adman and former Grey executive Pankaj Mudholkar, Aakriti has a strategic partnership with American public relations (PR) giant APCO Worldwide and calls itself an "APCO Worldwide affiliate".

The FTIL-Aakriti relationship dates back to May 2014, around the time when promoter Jignesh Shah was arrested by the Mumbai police for his alleged role in the Rs 5,600-crore payment crisis in FTIL arm National Spot Exchange.

In an e-mail response, an FTIL spokesperson confirmed: "FTIL has hired the services of Aakriti Promotions and Media Ltd for its communication requirements since May 2014 to November 2015."

TOUGH TIMES

• The “legal and professional charges” of FTIL has zoomed to over Rs 71 crore for 2014-15
• A spokesperson says FTIL is going through challenging times since over 2 years and like any other corporate, they‘ve engaged the services of  professionals, agencies and service providers for  various functions

The company declined to give details of the financial part of the arrangement, including fee, to Business Standard. According to its latest financial statements, the "legal and professional charges" of FTIL has zoomed to over Rs 71 crore for the financial year ended March 31, 2015. The expenses under this head were Rs 40 crore in FY14 and only Rs 8.8 crore in FY13 before the NSEL crisis began.

"FTIL is going through challenging times since over two years and like any other corporate, we have engaged the services of highly-reputed professionals, agencies and service providers for our various functions," the spokesperson added.

A battle being fought by FTIL is against the ministry of corporate affairs (MCA) move to merge it with NSEL. The Aakriti website has put up two audio-visual commercials as the work done for FTIL. Both are campaigns against the proposed merger of FTIL with NSEL.

Separately, in March, NSEL had published two volumes titled 'The truth about NSEL'. One of the main focus areas of the paper was to argue against MCA's draft order on the merger.

"It also articulates the concerns of its parent company FTIL, which has faced unnecessary pain and punishment for no fault of its. Moreover, the 63,000 shareholders of FTIL are being made a scapegoat for the sins of others," the publication noted.

However, it said FTIL was "not associated with any aspect of the paper and thus not responsible for any points of view made in this paper".

According to its website, Aakriti Promotions and Media Ltd is an integrated communications solutions provider and is an affiliate of APCO Worldwide. Apart from FTIL, it counts among its clients the Adani Group, and Dudhsagar Dairy. The state-focussed investment events such as Vibrant Gujarat summit, Progressive Punjab and Invest in Madhya Pradesh are listed as "projects".

While Mudholkar's association with Vibrant Gujarat Summit dates back to his stint with Grey, APCO and Aakriti came into the picture later. In March, Mudholkar won the communicator of the year award from the Association of the Business Communicators of India (ABCI). The press release of ABCI credited Mudholkar with heading "the core team that envisioned and crafted the first Investors Summit for Vibrant Gujarat 2003".

It also said Aakriti, his entrepreneurial venture, was launched in 2009. This year saw the beginning of APCO's association with Vibrant Gujarat.

In 2012, Steven King, director, APCO Worldwide, New Delhi, had told Mail Today the company started working with the Gujarat government from 2009 for the Vibrant Gujarat summit of 2011. King said the mandate for APCO, which was the global relationship partner for the meet, was to promote Gujarat as a lucrative business proposition all over the world. The same Mail Today report also talked about APCO getting into a strategic partnership with Aakriti.

Margery Kraus founded APCO Associates in 1984 as a subsidiary to Arnold & Porter, one of Washington's largest law firms, and from which APCO's name is derived.

"We have neither directly nor indirectly taken any services of APCO Worldwide," the FTIL spokesperson said.