Copyright Reuters
Rose, a former Microsoft executive who took over from Mark Read last month after the group suffered a string of big client losses, said she would "dramatically" simplify how WPP was organised. Sign up here. The British company, which lost its crown as the world's biggest ad group to France's Publicis last year, said it had been hit by a sharp step down in its flagship ad planning and buying agency WPP Media in the quarter. It said it now expected revenue less pass-through costs to fall by 5.5-6.0% in 2025, a downgrade on its previous -3.0 to -5% forecast, while its headline operating profit margin would be around 13%, just below the bottom of its previous range. Rose said she acknowledged WPP's recent performance was unacceptable and said she was taking action to address it. "To deliver performance improvements, we will position our offering to be much simpler, more integrated, powered by data and AI, efficiently priced and designed to deliver growth and business outcomes for our clients," she said on Thursday. "We will expand our addressable market by pushing harder into enterprise and technology solutions." Shares in WPP have more than halved since the start of 2025. They closed at 360 pence on Wednesday, giving the group a market cap of 3.9 billion pounds ($5.2 billion). It was worth 24 billion pounds as recently as 2017. Net revenue for the third quarter was 2.459 billion pounds, down 5.9% on a like for like basis. Analysts had expected a 5.5% fall, according to a company-compiled consensus. ($1 = 0.7451 pounds) Reporting by Paul Sandle; Editing by Kate Holton
