WPP M&A Rumors Amid Downturn

2 months ago

Caroline Hepker/Chloe Malay

"So over the weekend, it looks like some M&A interest being shown in WPP. >> Yeah, some M&A rumors for WPP. So it's reportedly drawing interest from Havas, which is a rival advertising agency, and also potentially a private equity firm, KKR, as well. So uh this comes after really a series of of struggles for the company. It guide it cut its guidance just a few weeks ago. The share price has been on a big downward spiral for a while and it also lost quite big accounts over the last few years. So it was once the world's largest ad agency uh globally, but it has been uh struggling quite a lot. It's been underperforming the closest rival publicist by a wider and wider margin over the last two or three years. Um so it's been working on ways to kind of reignite that growth and and streamline the business cutting costs ac across the operations. But it seems that, you know, based on the the share price reaction this morning that investors might be thinking that a deal is actually a better option and that that could be actually the right way forward for WPP given all of its troubles recently."

WPP continues to struggle with declining guidance, lost accounts, and an ongoing downward spiral in its share price. M&A rumors with interest from Havas and KKR suggest that investors may view a deal as a viable turnaround option amid the company's operational challenges.

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