Australia helps drag Publicis Groupe down in shock earnings announcement
Publicis Groupe has seen its shares hammered overnight following a poor second quarter financial performance which included a 10% slump revenue slump for its Australian operations.
The second quarter results surprised the market with a reported 2.1% fall in organic revenues that saw its Europe, North America and Asia Pacific regions all reporting falls. Australia’s 10.8% drop was blamed on the CRM division losing the Qantas call centre account.
Publicis was immediately punished by investors with the stock falling 10% on the Paris stock exchange. The group’s woes affected the valuation of its competitors with rival WPP Plc falling 3.8 percent on the London market while Omnicom – which lost nearly 10% earlier in the week following its own poor results – declined over 1% in New York.
