Further to the statement in its first quarter trading update on 26 April 2019 that it would review the appropriateness of its existing business sector reporting, WPP PLC (LON:WPP) has today announced the outcome of this review.
A key element of our strategy is to align our technology capabilities more closely with our creative expertise, and to simplify WPP through the creation of fewer, stronger, integrated agencies. As a result, a number of businesses currently reported within Public Relations & Public Affairs, and Brand Consulting, Health & Wellness and Specialist Communications, have been merged with entities within Advertising & Media Investment Management (“AMIM”). These include Wunderman, VML, Ogilvy PR and OgilvyOne. Additionally, the US healthcare companies have been re-aligned with strong agency partners within AMIM, and Burson Marsteller and Cohn & Wolfe have been merged to form Burson Cohn & Wolfe.
As a consequence of these moves, which reflect changes in the way we manage the business and report internally, we will report under the following sectors as from the 2019 interim results:
· Global Integrated Agencies: all of Ogilvy, VMLY&R, Wunderman Thompson, Grey, GroupM and Hogarth.
· Data Investment Management: the Kantar business.
· Public Relations: WPP’s public relations specialists, as previously reported but excluding Ogilvy PR which now sits within Global Integrated Agencies as part of Ogilvy.
· Specialist Agencies: more specialised agencies, whether by region or range of services.
This change only affects the business sector reporting structure of the results; there is no change to the Group-level financial statements or the geographical segmentation.
Revenue and revenue less pass-through costs data for the four quarters of 2018 have been restated under the new business sector structure, and are available for download at www.wpp.com/investors/results-presentations-and-reports?page=1.
