Maurice Levy stays (for now) to steady the ship, but what does life after Levy hold for Publicis?

Just as Sorrell did with WPP, Levy created Publicis. It is his drive and ambition that has built it into the world’s third-largest [by market cap] advertising group; and the company has been built largely in his image, and along his lines of thinking.

But (again, like Sorrell and WPP), Publicis is not Levy’s company. He doesn’t own it, it’s a publicly listed company with shareholders and investors who have to be kept happy. In contrast to WPP, ownership by institutions and funds is relatively small at 1 per cent, but Levy still cannot afford to run the company as a personal possession or fiefdom. It’s a tribute to his astuteness and charisma that he has managed to keep stockholders happy – particularly with his digital-focussed strategy, which has proved hugely successful – while giving the impression that he is in total control of the company.

But Levy’s good work over the past decade has been marred by the collapsed Publicis-Omnicom deal earlier this year, which failed to convince shareholders that it would add value; and which was challenged by some observers and rivals (Sorrell among them) as little more than a swansong on the part of Levy and his Omnicom opposite number, John Wren.

Although he has made noises about retiring over the past four years, Levy has never really (or convincingly) committed to a date. One can hardly blame him – it must be extraordinarily hard to let go of an empire you have built (and this is a problem Sorrell will be wrestling with too, although he shows no sign of stepping down), and in some ways the company’s owners will find Levy irreplaceable. He has, after all, been at the helm for 27 years, and with the company far longer.

But whether his leadership has been “extended” or not (the feeling was that had the “Publicom” merger gone ahead, Levy would have stepped down after a year or two, happy in the knowledge that he’d pulled of his – and the industry’s – biggest-ever coup), it seems to me that he had to stay. Levy has an excellent team beside him, but it will be key for him to pull the group out of the negative publicity of the failed merger and steer it in the right direction in the coming years. He will still want to leave on a high.

But now Levy will retire at the beginning of 2017, although the company has still not indicated who his successor will be. Jean-Yves Naouri, Publicis Groupe’s COO, was once considered a contender for Levy's job, but he’s considered to have been fatally tarnished by the failed merger, and is no longer on Publicis’ senior board.

So who’s in the running? An outsider – even from another holding group – is extremely unlikely. Saatchi & Saatchi global chief Kevin Roberts is out, as he will also be stepping down in 2017 (although he will be staying on as “head coach” of the holding company, and chairman of Saatchi/Fallon). Saatchi EMEA CEO Robert Senior is unlikely, as he will be taking over Roberts’ job.

For me, the most likely candidate may be one of these: Laura Desmond, CEO of Starcom MediaVest Group; Steve King, CEO of ZenithOptimedia; Arthur Sadoun, CEO of Publicis (the agency, not the group); and Rishad Tobaccowala, chief strategist of Publicis Groupe. Of these four – all of whom have just been promoted to the Publicis Groupe senior board, the so-called Directoire, and all of whom are strong in media and digital – Sadoun (a fellow Frenchman) and Tobaccowala seem like strong candidates. Tobaccowala, especially, is a good bet, as he has a firm grounding in, and understanding of, digital, having run Publicis’ two most successful digital shops, DigitasLBi and Razorfish.

Indeed, there are signs that Levy has reverted back to his pre-2013 strategy, which is to concentrate on making acquisitions in digital and reducing its reliance on traditional marketing. Post-Publicom, organic sales growth at the Groupe have fallen by 0.5 per cent, while Omnicom’s have risen 6.4 per cent – so Levy will be keen to heal the wounds among his senior staff and get everyone singing from the same digital hymn sheet. And acquisitions continue unabated – just two weeks ago Publicis acquired the highly-rated Canadian digital agency Nurun for $115m.

Levy has always been an astute man-manager, and keeping hold of the group’s best talent will be one his top priorities if he is to ensure a smooth succession. Earlier this week, when his leaving date was announced, he also announced a raft of promotions, inter-group mergers (Razorfish and Rosetta especially, giving the Groupe another digital network of real scale, which is what global clients are increasingly demanding) and a bewildering number of new committees (Levy has always, in a sense, ruled via committees).

This activity will allow the 72-year-old to retain control and continue to mould the group in his image. He has two-and-a-bit years to achieve his aims – a difficult task, but by no means impossible for a man of Maurice Levy’s energy. If he hasn’t, it may be that he carries on until the job is done. We will know more next month, when it’s rumoured that a succession strategy will be announced.

Nobody will be watching that press conference more closely than his great rival Sir Martin Sorrell, to whom there still seems to be no clear successor. However, Sorrell knows that one day he too will be in Levy’s position.

Tony Walford is a partner at Green Square, corporate finance advisors to the media and marketing sector