Havas Growth Stunted By Sluggish NA And Europe Performance

Havas reported full-year 2013 revenue of approximately $2.4 billion with organic growth for the period of 1%. Fourth-quarter revenue was approximately $707 million with organic growth of 1.6%.

That’s on the low side for the holding companies reporting revenue and organic growth results so far for the full-year and fourth-quarter periods.

Omnicom Group, for example, reported last week that it achieved organic growth (which excludes the impact of acquisitions, dispositions and currency fluctuations) of 3.5% for the full-year and 4.2% for the fourth quarter. The comparable figures for proposed Omnicom merger partner Publicis Groupe were 2.6% and 0.7%, respectively.

Full-year organic growth for Interpublic Group was 2.8% while fourth quarter organic growth was 3.7%, which the company said was the strongest single quarter in two years.

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By region, both North America and Europe (outside the UK and France) proved to be a drag on Havas results in both the fourth-quarter and full-year periods.

In North America, the company reported an organic revenue decline of 1.2% in Q4 and 1.7% for the full year. The Q4 decline in Europe outside the UK and France was 6.8% and 2.7% for the full year.

The UK was the best performing region for the company in both periods, followed by Asia Pacific and Africa, which it lumped together for reporting purposes.

Havas didn’t report profits or margins for the periods and said that complete financial reports would be issued March 20.

Havas CEO Yannick Bollore noted that the company ended the year with better organic growth than it started—a 0.9% decline in the first quarter. “Our North America business is recovering, with a new team in place and increased commercial momentum,” he added.

The company’s latest revenue report follows a number of recent management changes at Havas. Just last month, the holding company confirmed that CEO David Jones stepped down. Bollore succeeded him as CEO of the holding company and Andrew Bennett stepped up to global CEO Havas Worldwide, a post that Jones also held.

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