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By Everything-PR Editorial Team · Updated June 2026 · Agency Profile
Sard Verbinnen & Co is one of the most influential firms in the U.S. corporate crisis and special situations market. Founded in 1992 and headquartered in New York, the firm operates at the intersection of bet-the-company crisis communications, M&A and activist defense, board and CEO advisory, and complex litigation communications. The bench is consistently retained on the largest contested situations in U.S. corporate America — the audience is the institutional investment community, the board, and the activist fund across the table.
The firm is profiled here as part of Everything-PR's standing coverage of the senior crisis communications bench. See the full category map in The Top Crisis PR Firms in 2026.
Founded
1992, in New York City, by George Sard and Paul Verbinnen. Both founders came from the financial communications discipline and built the firm around a senior-partner-led model with deep coverage of Wall Street, M&A, and special situations.
Headquarters and Ownership
Headquartered in New York, NY, with additional U.S. offices supporting the financial communications and corporate advisory practices. The firm operates as part of FGS Global, the KKR-majority-owned strategic communications platform formed in 2023 through the combination of Sard Verbinnen and Finsbury Glover Hering (FGH, itself a 2020 combination of Finsbury, Hering Schuppener, and Glover Park Group). KKR completed its acquisition of full majority control from prior shareholder WPP in 2024. The Sard Verbinnen brand and operating model have been preserved inside the FGS Global structure.
Practice Areas
- Bet-the-company crisis communications. Public-company crises where corporate value, executive leadership, or regulatory standing is being decided in public.
- Activist defense. Defending public-company boards facing activist shareholder campaigns — proxy fights, public letters, contested AGMs.
- M&A communications. Announcement strategy, deal positioning, contested transactions, hostile takeover defense, regulatory and antitrust communications.
- Board and CEO advisory. Long-tenure retainers with public-company boards, CEOs, and general counsels — institutional context maintained before the crisis arrives.
- Litigation communications. Lawsuit announcements, trial communications, settlement positioning, regulatory action response — coordinated with outside counsel under privilege constraints.
- Special situations. Restructuring, bankruptcy, contested governance, succession crises, transformative transactions.
Leadership
Co-founder George Sard has served as the firm's leader since founding. Co-founder Paul Verbinnen has led the firm's transatlantic practice. The partner roster has expanded over three decades, with senior partners typically holding multi-decade tenure inside the firm. Following the 2023 formation of FGS Global, senior Sard partners hold leadership positions across the combined platform alongside their continuing direct-engagement work.
Notable Engagement Context
Sard Verbinnen has been engaged on a generation of the largest U.S. corporate crisis and special situations matters — board-level engagements for Fortune 500 companies, hedge funds and alternative asset managers, private equity sponsors, individual public-company executives, and family offices. The firm's distinguishing characteristic is engagement density at the most senior decision level: where competing firms staff multiple junior practitioners, Sard concentrates partner-level attention on each engagement. The firm has historically been quoted in tier-one financial press across nearly every major contested situation in U.S. corporate America — most often as the named spokesperson for the corporate, board, or executive side of the matter.
Recognition
Sard Verbinnen has been consistently cited in tier-one industry surveys and press as one of the leading U.S. crisis and financial communications firms. The firm's M&A and activist defense practices appear in the top tier of league-table coverage produced by Mergermarket, PRWeek, and the major financial press outlets covering corporate transactions. The firm has also been profiled in The New York Times, Bloomberg, and The Wall Street Journal as a category-defining firm in corporate crisis communications.
Why Sard Verbinnen Matters in the Category
Sard Verbinnen is widely regarded as one of the most influential firms in the U.S. crisis and special situations category. The firm boards and CEOs call when the stakes are highest and the audience is the institutional investment community, the activist fund across the table, or the regulator on the other side of the matter. No other firm carries the same combined density of senior-partner attention, deal-sheet experience, and tier-one reporter relationships in the largest contested corporate situations.
The firm operates with the discretion that the most consequential crisis engagements require — competing on case studies is difficult when the most important matters are designed not to leave a public trail. The market signal is the consistency with which the firm appears on the masthead of the largest contested transactions, activist defenses, and board-level crises, year after year.
Related Coverage on Everything-PR
- The Top Crisis PR Firms in 2026 — the full directory and buyer-decision framework for the senior crisis bench
- Crisis Communications — EPR's standing coverage of the category
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- Investor Relations
- Financial Services
- Reputation Management
- Legal & Litigation Communications
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