Profits have halved at advertising and marketing giant WPP after clients slashed their spending and new business dried up in a "challenging" first half of the year.
The London headquartered company, which owns names such as Ogilvy and Burson, also cut its interim dividend from 15p to 7.5p ahead of the arrival of new CEO Cindy Rose from Microsoft in September.
Outgoing boss Mark Read revealed that WPP's first half revenues fell nearly 8% to £6.66 billion in the six months to end June, although the drop was only 2.4% on a like for like basis.
For the year as a whole like for like revenues are expected to be 3% to 5% lower than 2024 with the headline operating profit margin down 50 to 175 bps year on year .
First half operating profits dropped by 48% to £221 million while pre-tax profits were 71% down from £246 million to £70 million.
Read said: "It has been a challenging first half given pressures on client spending and a slower new business environment. We have, however, made significant progress on the repositioning of WPP Media, simplifying its organisational model to increase effectiveness and reduce costs. Meanwhile, the acquisition of InfoSum, the launch of Open Intelligence and the continued adoption of WPP Open all strengthen our data and technology capabilities."
He said the halving of the interim dividend comes ahead of a "review of the strategy and future capital allocation policy" under the new leadership.
WPP has more than 100,000 employees and operates from 2,400 offices in 110 countries all over the world.
One of the biggest declines in revenue was seen in China where they fell 16.6%. The UK was down 6%, western Europe 5.5% but north America only 2.4%.
Globally revenue from WPP's top 25 clients held broadly flat with 0.1% like for like growth in the first half, although all the main sectors came under "more pressure in the second quarter."
Cost savings included a headcount reduction of 3.7%, generating annual savings of more than £150 million from 2026.