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| Mark Read |
WPP CEO Mark Read reported 2024 revenues (less pass through costs) fell one percent to $14.4B, due to weaker client discretionary spending.
Though WPP's “top line was lower,” Read noted 2024 accomplishments such as the June merger of BCW and Hill & Knowlton to create Burson.
WPP’s PR operations, which included FGS Global until the completion of its sale to KKR in December, posted a 1.7 percent decline in Q4 revenues to $1.4M. Headline operating profit dropped 13.1 percent to $166M.
Read noted significant advances on the AI front during he past year. He believes AI will be the single most transformational development in the industry since the internet.
“It will impact every element of how we work, freeing up our creative people to do better work, increasing the efficiency of our production teams to produce much greater volumes of high-quality work and empowering our media teams to develop and deploy more effective plans in a fraction of the time," he said
WPP Open, the AI-powered marketing system, is used by 33K of the firm’s staff, according to Read. WPP plans to hike investment in WPP Open 20 percent to $375M this year.
Read remains cautious about the outlook for 2025, but feels WPP’s simpler client-facing offer and operational excellence will support growth and deliver value to shareholders.
WPP has adopted a gloomier profit and sales forecast due to a deteriorating Q2 financial performance triggered by weak client spending as companies cope with the challenging economic backdrop.
FTI Consulting handles the reorganization of Wolfspeed Inc. as the Durham, NC-based semiconductor company moves to slash its debt load.
Stagwell CEO Mark Penn reports Q1 revenues fell 2.7 percent to $651.8M, while its net loss rose from $1.3M to $2.9M.
WPP CEO Mark Read reported like-for-like revenues dropped 2.7 percent to $3.3B in Q1 due to the challenging business environment.
Interpublic suffered a $85.4M Q1 loss as net revenues declined 8.5 percent to $2B. It earned $110.4M in the year-ago period.
