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Publicis Groupe, the world's third largest communications group, reports second quarter
revenue and first half results. Maurice Lévy, welcome. You are the CEO of Publicis Groupe.
What are your comments on the Group's performance in the second quarter, and in the first half
of the year overall?
I have only good news today. There are some days which are very sunny, and this is one
of the days which is so sunny that I am very pleased to share these numbers with you. We
had a very strong acceleration of our growth in Q2. While we were expecting something like
2.3-2.4% for organic growth in the second quarter, we have concluded the quarter with
a 5% organic growth. So I am extremely pleased with this number.
Regarding the first half results, we also have very good news because we have an improvement
of our margin which is moving up from 13.4% to 13.8%. That is a +40 bp improvement in
our margin which is already the highest in the industry. There are some other good news:
net income has increased by 15%, free cash flow has increased by 27.2%, and the EPS,
totally diluted, by 11,8%. So, when you look at all these numbers, I think that we have
a lot of reasons to be happy. And also, new business is very good in the first half with
$2.8bn of new accounts that we have registered. So all in all, a good first half.