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WPP has “considered” moving its primary listing to New York, according to chief executive Mark Read, who will seize opportunities to take advantage of a “resurgence” in the United States as Donald Trump returns to the White House.
Read told the Financial Times that this was the year for the London-listed ad network to start delivering on its efforts on AI, revenue growth and – despite its concerns about the health of the UK stock market – price of its shares.
“We need to drive revenue growth to drive the share price – I’m very focused on that,” Read said in an interview at his Southbank office in London, as he outlined his plans for an additional $100 million investment in AI to boost both. creativity and productivity within its agencies.
“As a leadership team, we have a plan. We know what we must do. And 2025 is the year of execution, and in particular of execution in AI.
Read said WPP had considered moving its primary listing to the United States, adding: “It’s something we’re monitoring closely.” Although there are no plans to do so at the moment, he noted that “other CEOs who have moved their listing to the United States have had a positive experience.”
The market is closely watching Read’s next moves, with discussions between business advisers and industry rivals over growing pressure on the CEO following the former BT boss’ arrival. Philippe Jansen as president three weeks ago.
WPP shares have fallen by a tenth in the past month and are now around a third lower than when Read took over in 2018. The share price of French rival Publicis has almost doubled during the same period.
Meanwhile, WPP’s two biggest U.S. competitors — Omnicom and IPG — unveiled last month merger plans to create a unique advertising heavyweight, based in New York.
Read said that while major Omnicom-IPG-type deals were “obviously something we would consider,” he would not have pursued such a tie-up. “We are better off investing in what we have rather than undergoing major consolidation,” he said.
He also saw the merger as an opportunity, suggesting that WPP’s own period of restructuring foreshadowed coming disruption for its US rivals. “I’ve had the battle scars of integrating businesses over the last six years,” Read said, noting the challenges of bringing together companies spanning multiple advertising and PR agencies.
“There will be three big players in our industry. None of us are really different from the others in terms of size and scale,” he said. And while scale tends to be a positive for media buying and planning activities, he added, “it wasn’t entirely clear to me that scale and creativity were two words that always go together.
Read came under fire from some staffers over a policy announced last week aimed at bringing people back to the office. four days a week. But he said: “Ogilvy in New York is one of our most successful agencies. It’s packed, busy and vibrant, you can feel the energy. And I’m sure these things are related.
Read said the United States, where WPP does about 38% of its business, would be WPP’s main area of growth, including M&A projects focused on data and technology services to give it more large presence in the world’s largest advertising market.
“With the Trump presidency, we are witnessing a renewed confidence in business circles in the United States,” he observed, emphasizing the “feeling of ambition and growth in the United States” which is reflected also by the performance of their companies on the stock market.
The UK government needed to “get to the bottom of it” on how to provide the flow of capital required by the FTSE 100, he said, pointing out that the valuation discount for London-listed companies was now “the biggest ever she has ever been in history.”
“This is leading to mergers and acquisitions and a reduction in the number of listed companies,” he added.
This represents a challenge, he said, for the UK as a whole. “We need to come together: WPP as a US company and the UK as a US country. »
WPP counts some of the biggest US technology companies among its clients – including last year winning Amazon’s media business outside the Americas – but has been hit by a slowdown in advertising spending in the sector. Nevertheless, he said that “in the long term, these companies are going to change the world.”
He also highlighted how Trump had, in a short period of time, brought about cultural change within corporate America: “The most striking example of the changes at Meta over the last six weeks. They can see the way the wind blows.
Advertisers were also returning to X, the social media site owned by Trump ally Elon Musk. “The change in content moderation (at) Meta – more closely aligned with X – probably also contributes to this,” he said.
Looking ahead, he said he hoped this year would see an improvement in revenue, with plans to spend between £50m and £100m more than in 2024 on an AI platform deployed to of the group’s 100,000 employees.
“We have many exciting new business opportunities,” Read said. “We’re very confident in where our AI investments are, and I think we’re going to have a better year in 2025 than we did in 2024.”