• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, February 8, 2022

Omnicom stock rose nearly 6% in after hours trading today (following a gain of 2% during regular trading hours) after it released its fourth quarter and full-year 2021 earnings report. 

Q4 organic growth (which excludes currency and M&A impact) was 9.5% while full-year growth was 10.2%, versus 2020. 

By region, full-year growth in the U.S. was 8.1%, nearly 9% in the UK, 13.6% in Europe, 13.7% in Asia Pacific and 9.4% Latin America. The company’s smallest region, the Middle East and Africa was up more than 26%. 

And the company’s organic growth guidance for full-year 2022 is between 5% and 6%. 

Reported Q4 revenue was up 2.6% to nearly $3.9 billion. The full-year numbers: $14.3 billion, up 8.5%. 

A year ago the company reported a 9.6% drop in Q4 growth with a full-year 2020 organic revenue shortfall of 11.1%. Those declines were pandemic-related.

Omnicom CEO John Wren said he expected growth this year to be driven by new business and extended remits from existing clients. M&A activity will be less muted and Wren said it would focus on bolt-on acquisitions in growth areas like precision marketing, data & analytics, ecommerce and healthcare. 

The company also noted that staffing levels had recovered to pre-pandemic levels of approximately 70,000 people worldwide, after having been cut by about 5,000 jobs during the height of the health crisis. 

The company recently bought the building that houses its London hub which accommodates about 5,000 employees. The UK is the group’s second largest market. 

The firm’s live events operation remains a question mark for at least the first half of the year given the vagaries of the pandemic, Wren said. After rebounding a bit last year, growth for the operation slowed in the current quarter as the omicron variant spread. But, Wren added, the company expects it to come back by year’s end. 

Wren said that based on discussions with clients, “there are no celebrations.” Rather, they’re focused on growth and specifically building better relationships with customers. “They’re aware that each customer is being influenced by messages 24/7,” he said. 

Supply chain issues and inflation remain near term issues, Wren added.