WPP PLC said Thursday it was heading for a pretax loss for 2020 as coronavirus pandemic triggered a decline in the value of historic property, and expects a strong recovery this year.
London-based advertising agency said net sales fell similar to the fourth quarter – a close measure of its underlying performance – 6.5%, after declining by 15.1% and 7.6% in the second and third quarters, respectively. leth. .
For 2020 as a whole, relative net sales fell 8.2%, ahead of a consensus expectation of an 8.4% decline.
WPP reported a pretax loss of 2.79 billion pounds ($ 3.89 billion) compared to a profit of GBP1.21 billion for 2019. The company said it maintained discount costs of GBP3.1 billion, due to the impact of the disease distributed means that it would need to apply higher discount rates to value future cash flows, a lower profit base in 2020 and lower business growth rates.
Revenue for last year fell 9.3% to GBP12.00 billion.
Owners of creative groups VMLY & R and Wunderman Thompson and conglomerate repurchase GroupM said its 2021 outlook is in line with the guidance issued in December for relative net income growth of one-hundred percent -digital, with the operating margin expected to be between 13.5% and 14%.
WPP raised its full-year share by 5.7% to 24 pence per share, and said it will begin buying GBP620 million immediately.