WPP beats rivals with pre-tax profits up almost 19%

WPP, the world’s largest advertising company, has reported pre-tax profits of £1.29 billion for 2013 – up almost 19%.

Martin Sorrell’s group saw an 18.7% leap, beating French rival Publicis, which was up 8.8% to £900 million. The US’s Omnicom, which is set to merge with Publicis to overtake WPP in sheer size, was up just 2.8% to £612 million. IPG was down 13% to £358 million.

WPP’s operating profits were up by 15.7% to £205 million, helped by strong performances from its UK ad and media agencies – which include JWT, Ogilvy, Maxus and Mindshare – and in its PR, public affairs and digital operations.

WPP recorded like-for-like revenue growth of 3.5% last year after it rebounded in the second half of 2013 with growth of 4.6%.

The strong performance of the British group enabled it to increase its share buyback programme to 2-3% of the share capital against the current 1%, which will help to counter the hit to margins.

The group said it has increased its target for revenue growth from the faster-growing emerging markets and its new digital services over the next five years.