• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, December 1, 2009

Set to lose business from Chrysler, Omnicom Group agencies may look to pitch for General Motors assignments, according to a Wall Street report. Separately, Omnicom again is not benefiting from marketers' traditional rush to empty unspent budgets by year's-end.

After a Monday meeting with Omnicom CFO Randall Weisenburger, Oppenheimer & Co. analysts wrote that a non-compete clause inhibited the holding company's ability to battle for creative accounts for the Cadillac and Chevy brands this year.

Omnicom's BBDO, which has handled Chrysler, would presumably soon be in a position to seek creative duties from other automakers. (Publicis and Interpublic agencies have long-rooted ties with GM.)

Oppenheimer wrote that as GM focuses on Chevy as a growth engine, Omnicom "should be able to compete for a larger piece of Chevy's business" next year.

The analysts wrote that Omnicom is preparing a writedown related to charges -- including property leases -- vis-à-vis its contract with Chrysler, which is expiring at the end of January. Omnicom has said that in 2009, revenue in the auto sector has been down 30%. This means the impending Chrysler loss may not have the impact it would have had in, say, 2007.

Before the economic meltdown -- pre-2008 -- Omnicom clients might have unloaded $100 million to $125 million in unspent budgets toward the end of the year. That could give the holding company a 3% bump in revenues. But that was not the case last year, and has not been this fall and winter, the Oppenheimer report said.

Nowhere in the report -- whether on the subject of auto business or reduced end-of-year opportunities -- does Oppenheimer differentiate between Omnicom's U.S. and global operations.

The Oppenheimer analysts, Jason Helfstein and Jennifer Lloyd Dance, wrote that Omnicom management expects organic growth to return in the April-June quarter in 2010. Nonetheless, there is a headwind for Omnicom's creative agencies, in marketers "re-using creative."

The analysts also wrote that Omnicom management believes its results are "generally on par" with competitors WPP and Publicis and ahead of Interpublic.