Citigate shuts Birmingham office

PR firm Citigate Dewe Rogerson is to close its Birmingham office at the end of this month.

Fiona Tooley, head of the Birmingham operation, will leave the firm when the local office closes its doors. Her two PR colleagues – Keith Gabriel and Liz Maher – have already left.

Citigate’s Midlands clients will in future be serviced from its head office in London. Tooley said their feedback to this news had been “mixed”.

Tooley has been with Citigate since it was established and positioned the Midlands office to work in partnership with UK and international clients at both an operational and board level in and out of the region. Its clients in the Midlands included four plcs: Victoria, Titan Europe, Dechra Pharmaceuticals and Trifast.

Speaking about the decision to end its regional presence – a decision taken by parent company Huntsworth plc – Tooley said: “It is a reflection of the economy. We never lost any clients during the recession but going forward the prospects are more limited.”

Tooley remains sanguine about the situation. “You can always see things as a negative but this can also be seen as an opportunity,” she said.

Suggesting that she intends to stay in regional PR, Tooley said: “I would like to think there would still be a presence in the Midlands to service these sort of clients.

“After 24 years I have built up a lot of contacts. I have been pleasantly surprised by the support of the wider business community.”

Citigate had been sharing an office with fellow PR firm Haslimann Taylor in Sutton Coldfield.