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WPP has “considered” shifting its primary listing to New York, according to its chief executive Mark Read, who will seek opportunities to capitalize on a “resurgence” in the US with Donald Trump returning to the White House.
Reid told the Financial Times that this was the year in which the London-listed ad network began to make its inroads into AI, grow revenues and – despite his concerns about the health of the UK stock market – its share price.
“We have to drive overall growth to drive the share price — and I'm very focused on that,” Reed said in an interview in his office in London's South Bank, where he outlined plans for additional AI investments worth up to $100 million. Creativity and productivity across its agencies.
“As a leadership team, we have a plan. We know what we need to do. And 2025 is the year of implementation, especially implementation in the field of artificial intelligence.
WPP has considered moving its primary listing to the US, Reed said, adding: “It's something we're monitoring.” While it has no plans to do so at the moment, he noted that “other CEOs who have moved their listing to the US have found a positive experience.”
The market is closely watching Reid's next moves, with talk among corporate advisers and industry rivals about mounting pressure on the CEO following the arrival of the former BT boss. Philip Jansen As president three weeks ago.
WPP shares fell by a tenth last month and are now about a third lower than they were when Reid took over in 2018. The share price of French rival Publicis has almost doubled in the same period.
Meanwhile, WPP's two biggest US rivals – Omnicom and IPG – were unveiled last month Merger plans To create one New York-based advertising heavyweight.
Reid said that while larger deals like Omnicom-IPG were “obviously something we were considering,” he would not have pursued such a tie-up. “It would be better for us to invest in what we have rather than do a major consolidation,” he said.
He also viewed the merger as an opportunity, suggesting that WPP's period of restructuring signals turmoil ahead for its American rivals. “I've had the scars of a corporate merger battle over the last six years,” Reid said, noting the challenges of bringing together companies spanning multiple advertising and public relations agencies.
“There will be three big players in our industry. “None of us are significantly different in size and size from the others,” he said. He added that although size tends to be a positive for media buying and planning activities, “it has not been one of “It's very clear to me that scale and creativity are two words that always go together.”
Reed has faced criticism from some employees over the policy announced last week to bring people back to the office Four days week. But he said: “Ogilvy in New York is one of our top-performing agencies. It's busy – busy and vibrant – you can feel the energy. And I'm sure those things are connected.”
The United States, where it has about 38 percent of its business, will be WPP's main area of growth, including merger and acquisition plans focused on data and technology services to give it a greater presence in the world's largest advertising market, Reed said.
“With the Trump presidency, there is a return to business confidence in the United States,” he noted, noting the “sense of ambition and growth in the United States” which also translates into how well their companies do on the stock market.
He said the UK government needed to “get to the heart” of how to provide the influx of capital required by the FTSE 100, noting that the valuation discount for London-listed companies was now “the largest ever in history”.
“It leads to mergers and acquisitions and a decrease in the number of listed companies,” he added.
He said this poses a challenge for the UK as a whole. “We have to come closer: WPP as a company from the United States and the UK as a country from the United States.”
WPP counts some of the biggest US technology companies as clients – including winning Amazon's media business outside the Americas last year – but has been hurt by a slowdown in ad spending in the sector. However, he said, “in the long run, these companies will change the world.”
He also noted how in a short period of time Trump has brought about a cultural change in corporate America: “The most obvious example of the changes in Meta over the last six weeks. They can see which way the wind is blowing.”
Advertisers were also returning to X, the social media site owned by Trump ally Elon Musk. “The change in content moderation (in) Meta — which aligns more closely with X — probably helps with that as well,” he said.
Looking ahead, he said he hoped this year would see an improvement in revenues, with plans to spend between £50m and £100m more than in 2024 on the AI platform being rolled out across the group's 100,000 workers. .
“We have a lot of great new business opportunities,” Reid said. “We are very confident in where we are in terms of our AI investments, and I think we will see a better year in 2025 than we did in 2024.”
