Tag Archives for " WPP "

WPP’s armchair warriors

Markets love corporate activity. Bankers love them as shifting assets around companies earns them big fees. Managements love them because they provide opportunities to earn big bonuses. Investors therefore are encouraged to believe all this will enhance shareholder value, so as to endorse the merry-go-round.  How many times have we seen acquisition led growth disguise […]

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WPP – position closed with a +19% relative gain (>+330% annualised ;-)

Add a bit of mean reversion to GrowthRatings, with a healthy pinch of recency bias and you can have a wild ride in these menopausal markets. For example, three weeks ago on this blog I highlighted the unloved Agency sector and in particular WPP.  Those listening to what some key marketeers were saying about their […]

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WPP – friendless & unloved – perfect!

Not all marketing investment seems wasted. After P&G’s earlier withering criticism of its digital marketing ROI, Diageo’s Q2 report yesterday, delivering a combination of rising A&P investment, organic sales growth and underlying operating margins, suggests a more nuanced approach may be needed by investors to the industry’s current problems. Faced with an unsolicited approach from […]

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Rising interest rates may be exposing advertising ineffectiveness

With the WPP share price down -11% on its Q2 earnings release, as FY17 revenue growth forecasts are trimmed along with market estimates for global advertising growth, I thought about writing a long winded post about markets propensity to increasingly aim below guidance towards the end of an economic cycle and in particular while the […]

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Wazzup – 7th June

Agency AGM trading statements continue to provide mixed signals on trading into early 2017        . WPP – April organic net sales growth remains below +1%, notwithstanding the late Easter and election effect         . M&C Saatchi – “2017 has started well”             .   […]

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WPP – slowing growth progressively reflected in rating, but are markets now also anticipating a recession?

Following Friday’s results from WPP, there are 3 areas of interest to me as a potential investor, and ones where the GrowthRater model and sensitivity analysis can offer insight on; at least on the latter two. 1. The immediate forecast 2. The longer term growth outlook and therefore rating 3. The volatility or valuation risk […]

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Markets get nervous on Ad Agencies ahead of long awaited ANA report on media kick-backs

Phantom menace It’s taken eight months, but is seems the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) is finally ready to release its eight month investigation into US media agency rebates. Its apparent pre-release briefing to a number of trade publications and newspapers suggests that it has uncovered ‘Non-Transparent’ practices, including claims that agencies are collecting media […]

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