The fateful eight: How Publicis, WPP, Omnicom, Dentsu, Havas, IPG, S4 Capital and Enero rank
The fateful eight: How Publicis, WPP, Omnicom, Dentsu, Havas, IPG, S4 Capital and Enero rank
Welcome to a Tuesday update from Unmade.
Today, we crunch global data to compare the performance of the eight communications holding companies which operate in Australia. The full post, featuring data processed by Unmade, is only available to our paying members.
Further down, we cover an eventful day on the Unmade Index on the day the ARN Media takeover of Southern Cross Austereo became a likelihood.
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WPP may be biggest but Publicis is most profitable
Results season sure does drag on.
But with Havas owner Vivendi reporting early this month, we now know how all the global communications holding companies fared in 2023.
In the US, we saw the full year numbers for Omnicom and Interpublic. From the UK came WPP and arch enemy S4 Capital. In the Eurozone, Publicis and Havas-owner Vivendi. Dentsu Group reported to the Japanese stock market, and here in Australia, Enero shared its numbers.
We’ve conducted an exercise which we believe is unique for Australia - collating the companies’ reported numbers for revenue and profits in their local currencies, and converting all of them to Australian dollar equivalents to make them comparable. We’ve also done a similar exercise for market capitalisations. I sure that the thousands of people working for these eight organisations in Australia don’t actually know if they work for the biggest.
We share all the data below.
There are several caveats before we get into numbers.
First, our only locally listed communications holding company Enero follows the Australian financial year, while all the others report on a calendar year basis. To make it comparable, we’ve calculated the second half of Enero’s previous financial year, whic covered January to June 2023, and combined that with its reported FY24 numbers which cover July to December 2023.
Second, Havas is just one division within the sprawling listed conglomerate Vivendi which also has divisions including pay TV operator Canal+, publishing, video streaming and entertainment. Our profit and revenue tables show the revenue just for the Havas division, while - in the absence of an alternative - the market capitalisation table features the full listed Vivendi number.
Third, the numbers for Sir Martin Sorrell’s S4 Capital, owner of Media Monks, is a best guess. S4 Capital will not report its final numbers for another eight days. However, it has already revealed that S4 Capital revenues are down 4% compared to 2022, and that its profit margin is 10-11%.
Fourth, every market has different accounting standards. Where possible, we’ve taken EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation) as the form of profit we’ve focused on, or as close as available.
And our final caveat: exchange rates fluctuate all the time, and the pound, US dollar and Euro move against each other at different speeds as well as against the Australian dollar. These numbers are based on what was going on in exchange rates yesterday, but would potentially have given different results at different times.
With all that said, let’s dive into it
Revenues - WPP narrowly on top
First we come to revenues. We’ve tried to focus on a true revenue number and exclude the pass-on revenue that flow through media agency accounts when they buy ads on behalf of clients.
Top company - just - for revenues is still WPP, which pulled in $23bn globally. That was just ahead of