ICM and the Business of Change

It's been a challenging week for ICM, which lost its bid to keep iconic agent Ed Limato and his roster of clients at the agency (Limato wanted out of employee contract after he was stripped of his co-president title last month by ICM chairman Jeff Berg). As most have known for a few days, Limato has landed at rival William Morris, taking clients such as Mel Gibson, Denzel Washington and Steve Martin with him. I had lunch with Berg yesterday and he spoke briefly about Limato's depature, saying that in this time of transition for the agency (which acquired Broder Webb Chervin Silbermann a year ago), he simply didn't think Limato was right for a leadership position any longer. The knock on ICM for years has been that the company had poor communication within its different departments and it's clear that Berg is trying to rebuild the company's culture from the ground up (or "blowing it up" as he once said). Berg, known just as much for his business acumen as his blunt nature, was basically saying that if you don't like change, you better get to like irrelevance. And that's something he just can't stomach. This kind of change can be painful and tumultuous, especially at a company of this size and stature.

We also spoke about the LA Times article (which came out today and focuses on relatively new ICM president Chris Silbermann, the television agent who "is being groomed to lead ICM into the future.") Berg was braced for criticism (he's been under the mircoscope since the company recapitalized in 2005, poising it for growth). I didn't think it was off the mark, although it did have a pretty big error in the first graph (about Julia Roberts and when she left the agency). However, it does rightly point out that ICM's film biz is nothing close to what it once was (I should remind readers again that I'll be starting a new job editing film coverage for the LA times in September). But this decline has been happening for years. As I've written before, the defection of Robert Newman to Endeavor was a major loss. But, in my opinion, ICM really started to lose its edge well before that, back when Ken Kamins and director Peter Jackson left the agency. Berg reminded me that they still have many strong film clients, and agents, such as Doug MacLaren, who has taken on more of a leadership position, and says he's currently looking to sign more. We'll see.