Mark Read, who took over as head of the British advertising group after Sir Martin Sorrell left in 2018, has yet to find a martingale. For its first full fiscal year at WPP, it posted a sharply lower result. The group, which is in the midst of restructuring, also had to face gloomy economic conditions in the United States and stronger competition from digital giants on its markets. Consequence: with a stable turnover at 13.23 billion pounds sterling, its operating margin fell by 0.8 point to 14.4%. If, in 2019, WPP won a few large customers including Mondelez, eBay or Huawei, it also lost large contracts including Disney, Vodafone or Johnson-Johnson.
Finally, the restructuring charges of £ 153 million ended up weighing on the bottom line. It fell 30% to 707 million pounds. The market heavily penalized this misstep with a fall of 16% in the share. This has resulted in all the values of the sector, including
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