Strategy Update and 2025 Preliminary Results

“My first six months as CEO have only reinforced my conviction that WPP is an extraordinary company. As our clients navigate uncertainty, AI disruption and macro-volatility, we're looking ahead with a clear and focused mission: to be the trusted growth partner for the world's leading brands in the era of AI.

“Today we are unveiling a bold plan for a simpler, more integrated WPP. Our intention is to stabilise the business, return to organic growth, create capacity to invest in the future and deliver attractive returns for our shareholders. WPP will become a single company, streamlined into four operating units across four regions, all unified by our pioneering agentic marketing platform, WPP Open.

“Our recent underperformance has been driven by excessive organisational complexity, a lack of an integrated operating model and inconsistent strategic execution. While disappointing, I see huge potential as these issues are all within our power to fix and we’re already making great progress.

“We have everything we need to succeed: exceptional talent, world-class capabilities, trusted data and technology solutions and groundbreaking partnerships, as well as the scale and reach to service the most complex multi-national, multi-brand clients in the world. The momentum we are seeing from the decisive action we’ve already taken gives me the confidence that we’re on the right path to creating a WPP that is fit for the future and built to win.”

Cindy Rose OBE, Chief Executive Officer of WPP

Strategy Update: Elevate28

WPP today announces ‘Elevate28’, a multi-year strategic plan to simplify and integrate our client proposition, restore growth and drive long-term value for clients, talent and shareholders. Transitioning from a holding company structure to a single company, WPP will simplify its business to deliver fully integrated, AI-enabled solutions through four core operating units: WPP Media, WPP Creative, WPP Production and WPP Enterprise Solutions across four regions, North America, Latin America, EMEA and APAC.

Central to this strategy is a new mission: to be the trusted growth partner for the world’s leading brands, helping them navigate change, capture opportunity and deliver growth, while transforming their business in a dynamic, complex environment. The plan focuses on stabilising the business in 2026, building momentum in 2027, and delivering accelerated, high-quality growth from 2028, supported by £500m of gross annualised cost savings and portfolio rationalisation to unlock value.

ELEVATE28: OUR STRATEGY TO STABILISE WPP SHORT-TERM, BUILD A NEW PLATFORM FOR GROWTH AND ACCELERATE FUTURE PERFORMANCE

Deliver superior growth for clients

• Lead with Media at the heart of an integrated proposition
• Establish next-generation Creative and Production capabilities
• Elevate Enterprise Solutions to partner with clients on AI transformation

Become a simpler, integrated company

• Simplify the operating model
• Strengthen execution and transform our go-to-market
• Drive a high-performance culture and attract and retain the world’s best talent

Unlock the advantage of WPP Open

• Connect capabilities through WPP Open
• Differentiate with trusted data solutions through Open Intelligence
• Expand strategic technology and data partnerships

Create firm financial foundations for the future

• Unlock £500m of annual cost savings, enabling a reallocation of investment
• Focus the portfolio to reduce leverage and create further capacity to invest in growth
• Disciplined capital allocation with a focus on maintaining an investment-grade balance sheet while delivering attractive returns for shareholders

OUTLOOK & PHASES OF DELIVERY

The plan is designed to deliver sustained growth through three distinct phases:

• Phase 1 – Stabilise (2026): The immediate priority is to stabilise net new business performance. We will execute cost savings initiatives and rationalise the portfolio.
• Phase 2 – Build (2027): Our transformed go-to-market strategy supported by a more effective operating model will be embedded and will help deliver a fully integrated offer spanning media, creative, production and enterprise solutions. We are targeting a return to organic growth during the course of 2027.
• Phase 3 – Accelerate (2028 and beyond): We aim to be a simpler, lower-cost, AI-enabled business, recognised by clients as a trusted growth partner, showing accelerated growth, improved margin and strong cash conversion.

To achieve this transformation and deliver £500m of gross savings by 2028, we anticipate total cash costs of approximately £400m phased over two years. We will reinvest a significant portion of savings into high-growth areas. See below for more details.

2025 Preliminary Results

* including proposed final dividend.

WPP reports 2025 revenue of £13,550m, down 8.1% on a reported basis and down 3.6% like-for-like (LFL), with revenue less pass-through costs of £10,176m down 5.4% LFL, ahead of latest guidance. Q4 LFL revenue less pass-through costs of £2,691m was down 10.1% reported and 6.9% LFL. 2025 reported operating profit margin was 2.8% and headline operating profit margin was 13.0%, representing a LFL decrease of 1.8pt. Adjusted operating cash flow before working capital was £1,189m, in line with latest guidance and year-end average adjusted net debt was £3.4bn, with an average net debt to EBITDA ratio of 2.2x.

FY and Q4 2025 performance

• Revenue – 2025 reported revenue of £13,550m was down 8.1%, with a LFL decline of 3.6%. 2025 revenue less pass-through costs of £10,176m was down 10.4% reported and down 5.4% LFL. Q4 revenue of £3,628m was down 8.3%, a LFL decline of 5.5%. Q4 revenue less pass-through costs of £2,691m was down 10.1% reported and 6.9% LFL.
• Business segment and regions – Global Integrated Agencies 2025 LFL revenue less pass-through costs fell 5.7% (Q4: -7.6%) with WPP Media declining 5.9% (Q4: -10.8%) and other integrated creative agencies declining 5.6% (Q4: -4.3%). By geography, North America declined 4.6% (Q4: -7.3%), UK -7.6% (Q4: -9.2%), Western Continental Europe -4.7% (Q4: -3.5%) and Rest of World -5.9% (Q4: -7.5%), with India increasing 3.8% (Q4: +8.6%) offset by a decline in China of -14.3% (Q4: -13.6%).
• Clients – WPP’s top 25 clients declined 4.1% LFL in 2025, including client assignment losses from the first half of the year. While the Healthcare and Pharma client sector improved in 2025, all other client sectors saw reduced spend year-on-year.
• Operating profit – 2025 headline operating profit was £1,321m, a margin of 13.0% (2024: 15.0%), down 1.8pt LFL. The lower margin reflects the decline in revenue less pass-through costs with higher severance costs contributing to a drag of 0.9pt YoY (in particular at WPP Media), and continued investment in tech and data, partially offset by lower staff incentives which contributed a 1.4pt benefit YoY (1.2pt LFL, which excludes FGS). Reported operating profit was £382m, down 71.2%, including goodwill impairment of £641m and property impairments of £114m.
• Cashflow and average adjusted net debt – 2025 adjusted operating cash flow excluding working capital was £1,189m (2024: £1,343m) in line with guidance. 2025 reported net cash inflow from operating activities was £724m (2024: £1,408m). Average adjusted net debt at 31 December 2025 of £3.4bn was down £0.1bn compared to 31 December 2024.
• Dividend – The Board has proposed a final dividend of 7.5p (2024: 24.4p) giving a full year dividend of 15.0p (2024: 39.4p).

Financial outlook for 2026

• LFL revenue less pass-through costs – We are encouraged by the improvement in new business in the fourth quarter and early 2026. Organic growth, however, is a lagging metric and as such we anticipate LFL revenue less pass-through costs to decline in the mid to high-single digits in the first half of 2026 with an improving trajectory in the second half.
• Headline operating profit margin – While we will benefit from the full year impact of cost saving actions taken last year and a part year impact from Elevate28 cost actions, we will invest to support a return to growth and rebuild incentives. Accordingly, for the full year we anticipate headline operating profit margin in the range of 12% to 13%.
• Adjusted operating cash flow before working capital – Including both the anticipated costs associated with historical plans as well as the restructuring costs linked to the Elevate28 strategy update, we anticipate adjusted operating cashflow before working capital of £800m to £900m. Excluding these charges, we would anticipate adjusted operating cashflow before working capital of £1.0bn to £1.1bn.
• Financial leverage – With the implementation of the new strategy, our focus over the next 12 months will be to stabilise the business while freeing up capital to provide further financial flexibility. We are committed to maintaining an investment grade balance sheet, a position supported by Fitch Ratings today assigning WPP a Long-Term Issuer Default Rating of 'BBB' with a Stable Outlook.

Elevate28 – Detailed plan

Market context and strategic rationale

The global total addressable market (TAM) for agency marketing, creative, digital and transformation services is growing at c.5% and expected to exceed $500bn by 2028⁶. However, the commercial ecosystem is seeing fundamental change, driven by the rapid diffusion of AI, changing consumer behaviour, competitive disruption and macro-volatility. Clients need a trusted growth partner capable of orchestrating media, creativity, production and technology to navigate this complexity.

While WPP possesses industry-leading capabilities, recent performance has been impacted by excessive organisational complexity, lack of an integrated operating model and inconsistent strategic execution. Elevate28 addresses these challenges by reorienting the company around the evolving needs of clients, leveraging WPP’s scale and WPP Open, our pioneering agentic marketing platform, to deliver transformation and growth for our clients.

WPP’s competitive advantage

WPP is well positioned to capitalise on this market evolution. Our confidence is grounded in three structural advantages that create a strong competitive edge for WPP:

• Trusted data and intelligence: Open Intelligence is our foundational intelligence layer, securely connecting live data from clients, partners and WPP in a privacy-first way. Built on InfoSum's data collaboration technology, it unlocks unique insights without data ever being shared – turning real-world behaviour into predictive intelligence while preserving privacy, control and trust. Clients see exactly where, how and why their marketing investment is working.
• Integration of media, data, creative and technology: In an AI-driven world, the discipline of brand building is being permanently rewired. In this landscape, human creativity and craft, judgment, taste and empathy are what earn attention, build trust and differentiate brands. We combine cutting-edge media intelligence, world-class creativity, industry leading production and transformative enterprise solutions – all powered by exceptional talent and WPP Open.
• Global scale and deep client relationships: As an established partner to a large number of the world’s leading advertisers, we possess a massive installed base of opportunity. By simplifying our operating model, we unlock the ability to cross-sell high-growth capabilities – such as Enterprise Solutions – directly into our existing client relationships.

Elevate28: A unified growth strategy

The Elevate28 strategic plan is anchored in four objectives: delivering superior growth for clients, becoming a simpler, integrated company, unlocking the advantage of WPP Open and creating firm financial foundations for the future.

Deliver superior growth for clients

• Leading with Media at the heart of an integrated proposition: Re-orient our go-to-market around a more integrated client proposition with media and data at the core to accelerate client growth.
• Establish next-generation Creative and Production capabilities: Build unified, next-generation creative and production capabilities each powered by a single operating model to drive insight-led content delivery and operational efficiency.
• Elevate Enterprise Solutions to partner with clients on AI transformation: Establish a standalone operating unit bringing together WPP’s customer experience, commerce, CRM, content transformation and technology & data platform capabilities to capture high-growth demand for enterprise AI transformation services.

Become a simpler, integrated company

• Simplify the operating model: Move to a simplified structure comprising four operating units (Media, Creative, Production, Enterprise Solutions) across four regions (North America, Latin America, EMEA, APAC).
• Strengthen execution and transform our go-to-market: Transform how we engage with clients, empowering Global Client Leaders and leveraging our new team of ‘Client Solution Architects’ to orchestrate integrated, outcome-based growth strategies.
• Drive a high-performance culture, attract and retain the world’s best talent: Overhaul the performance framework to align objectives and incentives globally to client outcomes and overall WPP success.

Unlock the advantage of WPP Open

• Connect capabilities through WPP Open: Connect all four operating units through WPP Open, our pioneering agentic marketing platform. Powered by Open Intelligence, our foundational intelligence layer, enabling privacy-first data collaboration and agentic workflows.
• Differentiate with trusted data solutions through Open Intelligence: Leverage InfoSum’s data collaboration technology to connect live data from clients, partners and WPP, unlocking unique, predictive insights and optimising marketing investment in real time while preserving privacy, control and trust.
• Expand strategic partnerships: Deepen integration with strategic partners to co-innovate AI, data and technology solutions that support client growth.

Create firm financial foundations for the future

• Structural simplification: Unlock £500m in annualised gross savings by 2028 from operating model changes, deduplication of support functions and real-estate/long-tail efficiencies.
• Focus the portfolio: Rationalise portfolio, reduce leverage and create capacity to invest in growth.
• Disciplined capital allocation: Maintain an investment-grade balance sheet while prioritising organic investment in high-growth areas and delivering attractive returns for shareholders.

Our execution plan

We are moving with urgency to implement this framework. Actions taken to date include:

• Go-to-market: Created central ‘Client Solution Architects’ and Growth teams to cross-sell services more effectively and integrate new business capabilities.
• Technology: Full integration and deployment of Open Intelligence into WPP Open driving an improvement in net new media business. Expansion of our Google partnership for AI and cloud technology and Adobe partnership for integrated solutions for global brands; launch of WPP Open Pro (self-service) and Agent Hub (internal app store for AI agents).
• Organisational structure: Launch of WPP Production, bringing together WPP’s extensive production capabilities into one unified organisation to centralise expertise and enable a more integrated offering for clients.

Actions announced today:

• WPP Creative: Formation of a unified operating model for our iconic agency brands across Creative, PR and Design. This preserves distinct agency cultures while implementing a shared operating system to facilitate frictionless collaboration and resource sharing and allowing clients to benefit from access to the full breadth of WPP's capabilities and exceptional creative talent.
• WPP Enterprise Solutions: Establishment of a new operating unit consolidating WPP’s customer experience, commerce, CRM, content transformation and technology & data capabilities to capture high-growth demand for enterprise AI transformation. Clients will benefit from access to AI transformation and marketing modernisation services.
• Cost efficiency: Initiation of a new £500m savings plan to fund investment in growth drivers and rebuild margins.
• Talent framework: Implement new framework to embed a high-performance culture and align objectives and incentives globally to client outcomes and overall WPP success.
• Focus the portfolio: Action decisions from our portfolio review to unlock capital which will be used to reduce leverage and further build greater financial flexibility. Processes are underway and we will update in due course.

Three phases of delivery

The plan is designed to deliver sustained value through three distinct phases:

Phase 1: Stabilise (2026) The immediate priority is to stabilise net new business performance. We are encouraged by an improved new business performance in Q4 2025 (see Q4 2025 highlights below for detail) and will build on actions at WPP Media to improve competitiveness (specifically in the US and UK). We will also execute cost saving initiatives, and take portfolio actions to improve balance sheet flexibility.

• Financial goal: Deliver positive net new business, achieve gross run-rate savings of £250m by year-end (equivalent to around £100m in-year gross savings) and progress portfolio actions.

Phase 2: Build (2027) We will fully implement and start to benefit from our revised go-to-market strategy and continue to deliver benefits of the new operating model via improved execution and further reductions in costs.

• Financial goal: Return to organic growth during 2027, rebuild margins and reduce leverage.

Phase 3: Accelerate (2028 and beyond) WPP will emerge as a simpler, lower-cost, AI-enabled business. Revenue growth will be driven by the full integration of media, creative, production and enterprise solutions, as well as the global scaling of agentic workflows.

• Financial goal: Accelerate organic growth, expand margins, deliver strong cash conversion.

Across all three phases a priority will be to maintain an investment-grade balance sheet.

Financial framework

To achieve this transformation and support the delivery of £500m of gross cost savings, we anticipate total cash costs associated with the Elevate28 programme to be approximately £400m, phased over two years.

We anticipate separating out restructuring spend from our headline P&L earnings metrics, however all cash restructuring spend will be included in our adjusted operating cash flow pre working capital.

WPP will reinvest a significant portion of these savings into high-growth areas including media, commerce, high velocity production and enterprise solutions, as well as strengthening our go-to-market capabilities, rebuilding incentives and sustaining investment in WPP Open. The balance will support a rebuild of our margins, alongside improved operating leverage as we return to growth.

Balance sheet and capital allocation

Reflecting this investment trajectory, we anticipate financial leverage (average net debt to Headline EBITDA) to rise in 2026 before reducing from 2027 onwards as the company benefits from improved operating performance, alongside actions already in progress to realise value from our portfolio.

In light of the transformation programme, we have reassessed our approach to capital allocation and cash returns. Our priorities, in order, are as follows:

• Maintain an investment grade balance sheet: our primary focus is to retain strong liquidity, reduce gross debt where possible and improve leverage ratios over time.
• Fund organic growth: we will ruthlessly prioritise investment in the fastest growing areas of our business funded with our cost initiatives, enabling a reallocation of investment to those capabilities that support group-wide growth prospects.
• Share the proceeds of growth: we will balance sustainable returns to our shareholders with inorganic investment but will have a laser focus on only deploying capital when acquisition is more efficient than building internal capabilities. Excess capital will be returned to shareholders.

Reflecting confidence in the plan, having declared a 7.5p final dividend for 2025, the Board intends to maintain the annual dividend at 15.0p per share in 2026.

Meeting to cover the Strategy Update and 2025 Results at 9.30am GMT/4.30am EST:

• In-person meeting: Please contact WPP Investor Relations at irteam@wpp.com for more details and to register
• Webcast: Live webcast will be available here

WPP 2025 Preliminary Results and Strategy Update PDF 454 KB

For further information:

Media
Niken Wresniwiro, WPP +44 20 7282 4600

press@wpp.com

Investors and analysts
Thomas Singlehurst, CFA +44 7876 431922
Anthony Hamilton +44 7464 532 903
Melissa Fung +44 7353 107064

irteam@wpp.com

wpp.com/investors

1. Percentage change in reported sterling.
2. Like-for-like. LFL comparisons are calculated as follows: current year, constant currency actual results (which include acquisitions from the relevant date of completion) are compared with prior year, constant currency actual results, adjusted to include the results of acquisitions and disposals for the commensurate period in the prior year.
3. Reported operating profit divided by revenue less pass-through costs.
4. In this press release not all of the figures and ratios used are readily available from the unaudited results included in Appendix 1. Management believes these non-GAAP measures, including constant currency and like-for-like, revenue less pass-through costs and headline profit measures, are both useful and necessary to better understand the Group’s results. Details of how these have been arrived at are shown in Appendix 4.
5. Adjusted operating cash flow before working capital as reconciled in Appendix 4.
6. Source: IDC; Madison and Wall; Gartner; Provoke; Citi; PQ Media; Emarketer