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WPP has “looked” at moving its main listing to New York, according to chief executive Mark Read, who will pursue opportunities to take advantage of a “resurgence” in the US as Donald Trump re-enters the White House.
Read told the Financial Times that this was the year the London-listed ad network began delivering on its push into AI, revenue growth and – despite his concerns about the health of the UK stock market – share price his.
“We need to drive top-line growth to drive the share price – I’m very focused on that,” Read said in an interview in his London Southbank office as he outlined plans for up to $100 million in investments. addition to the AI to boost both. creativity and productivity across its agencies.
“As a management team, we have a plan. We know what we have to do. And 2025 is the year of execution, and especially execution in AI.”
Read said WPP had looked at moving its main US list, adding: “It’s something we’re keeping a close eye on.” While there are no plans to do so at this time, he noted that “other CEOs who have moved their roster to the US have found it a positive experience.”
The market is closely watching Read’s next moves, with talk among corporate advisers and industry rivals of increased pressure on the chief executive following the arrival of former BT boss Philip Jansen as chairman three weeks ago.
WPP shares have fallen by a tenth in the past month and are now about a third lower than when Read took over in 2018. The share price of its French rival Publicis has almost doubled over the same period.
Meanwhile, WPP’s two biggest US rivals – Omnicom and IPG – unveiled plans to merge last month to create a single New York-based advertising heavyweight.
Read said that while major deals along the lines of Omnicom-IPG were “obviously something we consider,” he would not have pursued such a tie-up. “We would rather invest in what we have than go through a major consolidation,” he said.
He also saw the merger as an opportunity, suggesting that WPP’s restructuring period showed disruption ahead of its US rivals. “I have the battle scars of integrating businesses over the last six years,” said Read, pointing to the challenges of merging companies that include multiple advertising and PR agencies.
“There will be three big players in our industry. “None of us is much different in size and scale from the others,” he said. And while scale tends to be positive for media buying and planning, he added, “it wasn’t entirely clear to me that scale and creativity are two words that always go together.”
Read has faced criticism from some staff over a policy announced last week to send people back to the office four days a week. But he said: “Ogilvy in New York is one of our best performing agencies. It’s packed – busy and lively – you can feel the energy. And I’m sure these things are connected.”
Read said the US, where it has about 38 percent of its business, would be a key growth area for WPP, including M&A plans focused on data and technology services to give it a wider presence. big in the world’s biggest advertising market.
“With the Trump presidency, there is a resurgence of business confidence in the US,” he noted, noting the “sense of ambition and growth in the US” that also translated into how well their companies fared in the U.S. market. shares.
The UK government had to “get to the bottom” of how to provide the capital flow the FTSE 100 needed, he said, noting how the valuation discount for London-listed companies was now “the biggest it has ever been”. been in history”.
“It is driving M&A and a reduction in the number of listed companies,” he added.
This poses a challenge, he said, to the UK as a whole. “We need to get closer: WPP as a company to the US and the UK as a country to the US.”
WPP counts some of the biggest US tech companies as clients – including winning Amazon’s media business outside the US last year – but has been hit by a slowdown in ad spending in the sector. However, he said that “in the long run, those companies will change the world.”
He also noted how Trump in a short space of time brought about cultural change in corporate America: “The most striking example of the changes in Meta over the last six weeks. They can see the way the wind is blowing.”
Advertisers were also turning to X, the social media site owned by Trump ally Elon Musk. “The change in content moderation (in) Meta — more closely tied to X — probably helps that as well,” he said.
Looking ahead, he said he hoped this year would deliver improvements in earnings, with plans to spend between £50m and £100m more than in 2024 on an AI platform being rolled out to the group’s 100,000 workers.
“We have a lot of great new business opportunities,” Read said. “We’re very confident about where we are with our AI investments, and I think we’ll see a better year in 2025 than we did in 2024.”
