Many, many years of weak management have left the company with debt. There are lots of plant locations, many non-performing business units. There are opportunties for "financial engineering" - i.e. watch out. The Yull family and their personal friends continue to benefit in ways that would not happen in a truly public company. IPG is sort of half way in between.
The company has a poorly defined competitive strategy - thus it is difficult to say what skills and capabilities will be valued and which business groups will be retained.
Management needs a lot of work. Generally well-meaning people, but the breadth of experience and professional competency is not what one would expect. IPG is Still caught in a 25 year old mindset of selling to distributors. IPG has a reputation as "Call IPG for 10% less",,,
The company is generally not prepared to invest in new initiatives. A $50k program will require an executive team meeting and several months of time. But a $500k sales meeting for IPG sales people (employees) is an "indispensible expense" - again, an indicator of a 25 year old "Rah-Rah" type of sales mentality...each meeting is like a high school prom with a theme, nifty gifts labeled with the name of the lastest sales incentive program. Not much in the way of understanding customer's, engineering needs, product attributes, business objectives, etc.
IPG is a good company, and one you should not hesitate to join as long as you can weather having things go south - if they do. There is company level risk. And rarely a week goes by that a memo does not circulate that says "Mr./Ms.___ is no longer here"
So...a solid opportunity if you are local.
