IPG posts profit and revenue growth and ups projections for 2018

Second quarter 2018 net revenue also increased 6.2% to $1.95bn, compared to $1.83bn in the second quarter of 2017, with an organic net revenue increase of 5.6% compared to the prior-year period.

Net income for the second quarter sat at $145.8m, up 35% on the $1.7m from the year prior.

Michael Roth, chairman and chief executive of Interpublic, hailed US and international growth as strong, led by “exceptional performance in media, creatively-led integrated agencies, and to a lesser extent from digital services, public relations, events and sports marketing".

He said: “This breadth highlights the competitiveness of our offerings, the talent of our people, the expanding value of our data and analytics practice, and our ability to bring collaborative open architecture solutions to market."

Roth also highlighted the Acxiom Marketing Solutions acquisition as a move that makes it “well-positioned to execute on the many opportunities that come with unrivaled industry resources in data management”.

He added: “Our results year-to-date, coupled with our expectations for the remainder of the year, have led us to increase our organic growth target, and we now expect to deliver net revenue organic growth of 4 to 4.5% in 2018.

“We remain committed to furthering our long-term record of margin expansion with 60 to 70 basis points of improvement, as targeted coming into the year. We view our current performance and long-term strategy as significant factors that will continue to further value creation and enhance shareholder value.”

IPG counts among its agency brands Craft, FCB (Foote, Cone & Belding), FutureBrand, Golin, Huge, Initiative, Jack Morton, MAGNA, McCann, Momentum and more.

The result bucks the trend of lacklustre holding group financials recently posted by Omnicom and Publicis Groupe.