Who we are section

WPP is the world leader in communications services. It comprises leading companies in all these disciplines:

• Advertising
• Media Investment Management
• Consumer Insight
• Public Relations & Public Affairs
• Branding & Identity
• Healthcare Communications
• Direct, Digital, Promotion & Relationship Marketing
• Specialist Communications

In June 2013, WPP was named Holding Company of the Year at the Cannes International Festival of Creativity for the third year running and was ranked the World's Most Effective Holding Company in the Effie Global Effectiveness Index for the second year in a row.

• Download company information(PDF 193Kb)

Our mission

• Our mission
• To develop and manage talent;
• to apply that talent,
• throughout the world,
• for the benefit of clients;
• to do so in partnership;
• to do so with profit.

About our company

WPP, the parent company, complements our operating companies in three distinct ways.

• First, it relieves them of much administrative work. Financial matters (such as planning, budgeting, reporting, control, treasury, tax, mergers, acquisitions, investor relations, legal affairs and internal audit) are co-ordinated centrally.
• Second, the parent company encourages and enables operating companies of different disciplines to work together for the benefit of clients. It also plays an across-the-Group role in the management of talent, property, procurement, IT, knowledge sharing, practice development and sustainability.
• And, finally, WPP itself can function as the 21st-century equivalent of the full-service agency. For some clients, predominantly those with a vast geographical spread and a need for a wide range of marketing services, WPP can act as a portal to provide a single point of contact and accountability.

• Download ‘Why we exist’ information (PDF 160Kb)

Non-executive chairman

• Philip Lader
• Chairman of the Nomination and Governance Committee Member of the Compensation Committee

Executive directors

• Sir Martin Sorrell
• Chief executive

• Paul Richardson
• Finance director
• Chairman of the Sustainability Committee

• Mark Read
• Strategy director
• Chief executive, WPP Digital

Non-executive directors

• Roger Agnelli

• Jacques Aigrain

• Colin Day

• Esther Dyson

• Orit Gadiesh

• Ruigang Li

• Jeffrey Rosen

• Hugo Shong

• Timothy Shriver

• Sally Susman

• Sol Trujillo

Share ownership by Geography

Share ownership by type

Investor relations

• Paul Richardson
• Group finance director
• Tel +1 (212) 632 2200
• prichardson@wpp.com

• Chris Sweetland
• Deputy Group finance director
• Tel +44 (0)20 7408 2204
• csweetland@wpp.com

• Fran Butera
• Investor relations director
• Tel +1 (212) 632 2235
• fbutera@wpp.com

Investor information

• Investor relations material and our financial statements are available online at www.wpp.com/investor.

Revenue

Revenue £m

Revenue £m

Reported revenue was up 3.5% at £10,373 million. On a constant currency basis, revenues were up 5.8% and, on a like-for-like basis, revenues were up 2.9% and gross margin up 2.4%.

Headline PBIT

Headline PBIT¹ £m

Headline PBIT¹ £m

Headline PBIT margin was 14.8% in 2012 against 14.3% in 2011. Headline PBIT was up 7.1% to £1,531 million.

After-tax return on average capital

After-tax return on average capital
employed² %

After-tax return on average capital
employed² %

After-tax return on average capital employed rose to 11.6%, with the weighted average cost of capital rising to 6.3%.

Average net debt

Average net debt £m

Average net debt £m

Net debt averaged £3.2 billion in 2012, up £0.4 billion at 2012 exchange rates. The average net debt to headline EBITDA ratio was 1.8 times, well within the Group’s current target range of 1.5-2.0 times.

2012 revenue by geography

2012 revenue by geography %

2012 revenue by geography %

In 2012, 30% of the Group's revenues came from Asia Pacific, Latin America, Africa & Middle East and Central & Eastern Europe, 0.6 percentage points higher compared with the previous year.

2012 revenue by sector

2012 revenue by sector %

2012 revenue by sector %

Marketing services comprised almost 60% of our revenues in 2012, a similar proportion to 2011. The strongest performing sector was Advertising and Media Investment Management with like-for-like revenue growth of over 5%.

Sorrell speaks...

WPP’s CEO on grey swans, the decade of Latin America, big data and the growth of digital in its myriad forms, horizontality, and the recruitment and nurturing of talent from around the world.

• 2012: “We got there ugly”
• 2013: Four strategic priorities
• BRICs, grey swans and Next 11
• New markets, new media, technology/big data and ‘horizontality’

Download Martin Sorrell’s article:

• Why we are Mad Men (and Women) as well as Maths Men (and Women)(PDF 1.9Mb)

Listen with Jeremy

Industry sage and WPP advisor, Jeremy Bullmore, reads his latest essay, Lessons to be Learned from Robert McNamara and a Pair of Long-handled Toe-nail Clippers.

• Download Jeremy Bullmore’s essay(PDF 210Kb)
• Download Jeremy Bullmore’s podcast(ZIP 6.10Mb)

BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Brands 2013

Since 1998 WPP, in association with Millward Brown, has published definitive studies of brand valuations, analysis and insights on 60,000 brands in over 200 categories drawn from interviews with over 150,000 people every year in up to 400 studies around the world.

In the BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Brands 2013, the top10 brand value growth risers score significantly higher than average on the BrandZ™ equity measures of Meaningful, Different and Salient. Prada grew the most in brand value, by +63%.

Top 50 Most Valuable Chinese Brands 2013

WPP’s third annual Top 50 Most Valuable Chinese Brands 2013 study provides further evidence of the growing importance of brand equity in China.

The BrandZ Top 50 Most Valuable Latin American Brands 2012 rankings corroborate the increasing importance of the world’s fast-growing markets and confirms that Lat Am brands are now competing with global brands.

BrandZ Top 50 Most Valuable Latin American Brands 2012