WPP plc

Good morning everyone and thank you for joining WPP 2026 Interim Results Call. My name is Desmond and I'll be coordinating your call today. During the presentation, you can register questions by pressing star followed by 11 on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind, please press star followed by 11 again on your telephone keypad. For those on the webcast, you can also ask questions via the dedicated Q&A box.

i'll now hand over to thomas singlehurst to begin please go ahead thank you desmond good morning and welcome to wpp's 2026 interim results i'm tom singlehurst head of investor relations and i'm joined today by cindy rose ceo and joanne wilson cfo before we get started please take a moment to review the important cautionary statement on slide two let me also quickly take you through our agenda We'll start with an overview of key messages as well as an update on strategic progress from Cindy. Joanne will then review the H1 numbers in more detail. We will then open up the lines for Q&A. And with that, I'll hand over the call to Cindy.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us today. When we reported our 2025 full-year results back in February, I laid out in detail our Elevate28 strategy. I made a commitment that we would be transparent about our progress along the way, forthcoming with lead indicators of our momentum and disciplined in how we measure success. Today, I'll share an update on where we are against the plan and why I'm encouraged by the steady improvements we're delivering across the company. Then I'll hand over to Joanne, who will take you through the financial detail. Before I start, I'd like to pay a personal tribute to Paul Richardson, who recently passed away. Paul served as WPP's group finance director for 22 years until he retired from the company in 2019. He joined WPP in 1993 as group treasurer and over nearly three decades played a central role in helping to build WPP into the global company it is today. I know many of you will have fond memories of working alongside Paul and will have also known him personally. Our thoughts are with his family at this time. Coming back to where we are today, the headline is that we're on track with where we said we would be, stabilizing the business and delivering on our ambitions with clear evidence of progress across all leading indicators. As part of Elevate28, we aligned on a new company purpose, to be the trusted growth partner for the world's leading brands. And to fulfill this new purpose, we announced four strategic objectives. To deliver superior growth for clients, to become a simpler, more integrated company, and to unlock the advantage of WPP Open, our agentic marketing platform, and to create firm financial foundations for the future. We also outlined a detailed execution plan that spans three distinct phases. The priority in 2026 has been to stabilize the business, make the structural changes needed, and strengthen our execution. The next phase is to build on these foundations, returning the company to growth sometime during 2027, And the third phase will be accelerating our growth so we can win our share of a growing market from 2028 and beyond. The building blocks of the new strategy are now firmly in place. We're moving from a holding company model to a single company model with four operating units, creative, media, production, and enterprise solutions that operate across four regions with common incentives aligned to WPP's overall performance, all underpinned wpp open which enables and connects everything we do we've made encouraging progress today we are a simpler more integrated company but our work is by no means complete and our focus remains firmly on execution and delivering against the commitments that we've made to our clients employees and investors The journey ahead won't be linear and there will undoubtedly be ups and downs along the way, but I'm confident that we are on the right path and setting WPP up for sustainable success well into the future. In May 2025, we launched WPP Media, then WPP Production in January this year. WPP Creative in February, and to complete the reorganization on July 1st, we officially launched WPP Enterprise Solutions to the market, a unified, technology-powered services offer that helps our clients modernize their marketing operations and unlock new sources of growth. Let's have a quick look at WPP Enterprise Solutions.

Great work is only as strong as the system behind it.

businesses grow when they drive purchases they grow faster when their experiences feel effortless we are fixated on making intelligent streamlined experiences for owners they grow deeper when they humanize relationships they grow broader when their stories connect with audiences you can have an intelligent interactive personalized conversation with the site they grow stronger when platforms power everything to the most important tool in the construction industry in a world where ai is leading the way every global business needs a partner who can reimagine what's next

build new systems and forge new paths to growth we design build and operate growth systems we are wpp enterprise solutions as ai reshapes our industry the winners will be those companies that can effectively embed technology directly into their marketing operations put data and ai to work to gain a deeper understanding of their consumers reimagine workflows and skill their workforce we believe wpp enterprise solutions is unique and differentiated because it's not a separate company that sells bolt-on services it's been built from within and remains deeply integrated with our creative media and production businesses enterprise solutions brings together commerce customer experience crm content transformation and leverages our deep technology partnerships to help design build and operate the growth systems that our clients rely on. The business is now live in the market and already partnering with global brands such as Ikea, Ford, L'Oreal, and Nestle to deliver marketing modernization and business transformation. In April of this year, we launched WPP's Commerce Practice, This is a cross-company connected practice that unifies our capabilities across creative commerce, media, enterprise solutions, and high-velocity production under dedicated global leadership. Commerce is no longer just a channel. It is the ultimate organizing principle for modern marketing, with global commerce ad spend now surpassing total TV advertising. Our commerce practice will enable us to capture this massive market opportunity without adding complexity or overhead. Our talent remains embedded within their agency homes while seamlessly connecting across the entire group using WPP Open. It's yet another decisive step in removing internal silos and simplifying how we go to market and ensuring we deliver the connected outcome driven growth that our clients need and want. In June of this year, WPP once again triumphed at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity. That achievement matters. Not just because of the recognition, but because of what it says about the strength and breadth of our offer and the enduring importance of human creativity. For our clients, the value is enormous. They can now access the number one global network in Ogilvy, the number two network in DML, the number one global PR agency in Burson, and the most awarded media group in WPP Media. Together, that combination is a significant differentiator for our business and a powerful proof point of the world-class talent and capability that WPP offers. So as I've said, we've made encouraging progress in many areas, and I couldn't be prouder or more grateful to my team for the incredible work that they're doing across the board. We're six months into a three-year plan. Phase one is about stabilizing our performance, arresting the decline, building momentum, and demonstrating that the changes we've made are translating into tangible results. At our full year results in February, I said organic growth was a lagging indicator and that we expect the first half revenues to be down mid to high single digits. We've delivered in line with this guidance at minus 4.7% like for like net sales for H1. And while this shows the continued impact of historical client losses, it is in line with our expectations. And I'm encouraged. Thank you very much. Joanne will take you through the numbers in detail shortly, but these results underline that the actions we're taking are having a positive impact on our main financial metrics. As we outlined earlier this year, it will take some time for the impact of these changes to fully flow through our numbers. So what I want to focus on with you today are the leading indicators that demonstrate our strategy is working, and also look at the areas where we need to continue evolving to ensure we deliver on our plan. At our strategy day, I shared the leading indicators that my team and I hold ourselves accountable for. New business wins, client retention, strategic technology partnerships, cost savings, and portfolio discipline. So let me briefly update you on each. In Q4 2025, WPP was number one in J.P. Morgan's net new business rankings for the first time since 2020. And I'm pleased to say that the momentum has continued. with WPP topping the rankings as number one for net new business for H1 2026 and for the nine months to Q2 2026. That's thanks to some landmark wins, including the Estee Lauder companies, Jaguar Land Rover, Henkel, Just Eat, Bet365, Fuse Tea, Airbnb, SC Johnson, Wendy's, Heineken, Honda, and more. But beyond these headlines, what matters to me is how we're winning. These are integrated, multidisciplinary mandates awarded to WPP as one team. This is the direct result of the strategic changes we've made to our client proposition. Just a few examples to bring this to life. Wendy's appointed WPP Media as their US media partner, building on a 14-year creative relationship with DML. That's a client choosing to consolidate with us because of the benefits of integration. natura and avon consolidated their marketing activities in latin america for the first time awarding their business to a combined team of vml david fbiz and wpp media creative production media and enterprise solutions all together one brief one team and the coca-cola company awarded us the diet coke business across emea for a brief spanning creative social and influencer marketing expanding on our existing media relationship Again, these wins demonstrate that when we show up as one WPP, media-led, data and technology enabled, structurally integrated, with creativity at our heart, we are the growth partner of choice for the world's leading brands. But market share growth doesn't come from winning new business alone, right? That's only part of the story. What's also critical is how we retain and grow the partnerships we have with our valued portfolio of existing clients. I'm pleased that we've improved on our client retention rates in the first half of this year, which included Huawei in China, Tesco in the UK, L'Oreal in Australia and New Zealand, Skechers across multiple markets globally, Reckitt in India, Toyota in Europe, and many more. I strongly believe that by bringing more operational discipline to our client engagement model, we can drive even further improvements in this area. This will be a key focus for us in the second half of this year and into next year, as we stand up a holistic client success program this program will be organized around three areas systems that give us a single view of our client relationships and a data-driven approach to performance tracking process that formalizes our approach to governance and client management including success metrics and joint business planning and people to build the critical capabilities leadership skills and mindset needed to meet and exceed client expectations This framework will create a more systematic approach to client lifecycle management, bringing greater operational discipline and excellence to our service delivery model. I've personally put this kind of program in place before, and I'm confident it will help us improve client retention and expand our most valued partnerships. And it'll do this by freeing up our global client leaders and their teams to spend less of their time on internal process and more of their time doing high impact work for our clients. Let me give you three examples of what I think exceptional client engagement looks like. And I'll start with the Kit Kat Heist campaign created by VML and Burson in close partnership with the Nestle team. Fast risk assessment and decision making turned a potential disaster of a lost shipment of Kit Kats into a global award winning campaign. dominating the critical Easter sales window, capturing 44% of category conversations on Meta, nearly three times its nearest competitor, and delivering a 600% spike in search interest, generating over 70 billion impressions in social media, equivalent to 224 million of earned media in only 10 days. This campaign was a testament to the talented teams from both Nestle and WPP who rewrote the traditional crisis management playbook in real time, but also a great example of how our simplified, more agile WPP is working in deep partnership with our clients as they themselves transform for growth. Just two weeks ago, Philippe Navratil in the Nestlé earnings call referenced this work specifically as a powerful illustration of the changes already underway in their own organization, including their evolving approach to marketing, and their shift to a performance culture. Secondly, during the recent Unilever earnings call, Fernando Fernandez noted the work that we did with Dove in partnership with Reddit during the launch of their new intensive repair hair mask. Let's take a look at that campaign. Reviews used to be opinions.

Now they're promotions.

But when every product is absolutely fantastic and life-changing, perfection, no one knows what to trust anymore.

Dove has always stood for what's real. So when it came to promoting our intensive repair mask, we chose honesty over hype. First, we went to Reddit, where there's no spin, no polish, and no control. Just brutally honest people with usernames like HairGoblin92. We asked them to review our product with one risky commitment. The first 50 reviews, that's the campaign. No edits. i love this shit smell it too strong holy grail of hair mask what a disappointment my wife likes very moisturizing and smells hella bad from reddit to streets across the u.s we put it all out there then we brought reddit anonymity onto set this is my review you want me to read it this mask said it was hydrating but just wasn't really doing it for me it's hydrating and my hair craves it this cap i hate it if there's one thing i don't love about the product it is the packaging wow where have you been all my life to me it smells like tropical vacation guys it kind of smells like expired hotel shampoo just being honest at a time when brands fear real honesty we asked for it honestly this isn't a mask i would reach for weekly amplifying even the negative through paid media it would be nicer if it was in a bottle

and just like that it took off proving that honesty not only resonates it sells but something else happened it helped us win over today's newest influencer a.i.

Turns out when you stop curating the truth, people start believing it again.

If it wasn't for the good and the bad reviews, I don't think I would have tried it.

What's striking about this campaign is not only its success. I mean, it created a billion in earned impressions, more than doubled sales, and helped Dove become the number one hair mask product in the U.S. during the campaign. But in addition to this, the campaign successfully addressed the challenge of making products discoverable by conversational AI. appearing in 56 of all hair mask chat gpt responses and the top recommendation across major llms while remaining true to dub's real beauty philosophy the third example and final example is the coca-cola company and the work that we delivered during an incredible fifa world cup 2026 campaign Together, we reached 180 markets with the trophy tour alone, making 70 stops across 30 markets and engaging around 700,000 fans. Digital and social activations generated 60 billion impressions with 9 billion views, helping trademark Coca-Cola become the number one brand by share of voice during the tournament. And importantly, these efforts contributed to quarterly growth of 5% for Coca-Cola and 8% for PowerAid. It's an absolute honor to partner with such an iconic brand and company. In February, I also updated you on our progress on our technology strategy, WPP Open and our growing partner ecosystem. As the name suggests, WPP Open is open by design. It works with client and partner solutions and doesn't lock clients into a single closed ecosystem. Having spent a decade at the frontier of enterprise transformation, I know how important it is to build a robust partner ecosystem in a fast-changing world no single company can go it alone our partners keep us and our clients at the cutting edge of innovation they help us scale our impact faster and open new routes to market that's why in the first half of 2026 we continue to deepen our strategic technology partnerships with google adobe meta aws and microsoft giving clients a simpler, more powerful alternative to managing multiple point solutions by bringing the best of the partner ecosystem together in one integrated platform, WPP Open. With Google, we expanded our partnership by launching a new frontier research initiative with Google DeepMind that embeds advanced AI research directly into WPP Open. Together, we've built a predictive cultural intelligence engine that forecasts emerging trends by giving clients the ability to both anticipate and respond to cultural shifts. These solutions are live in WPP open today across multiple clients, including Duracell, Airbnb, and Lexus, redefining the future of the new marketing flywheel and changing how our teams generate work from data to insights to creatives to production to media in ways that just weren't possible before. Our expanded partnership with Adobe brings together their industry-leading AI capabilities content platforms and data orchestration with WPP's strategic insights and creative expertise through a new joint client transformation practice. Adobe Firefly Foundry is now integrated into WPP Open and Adobe has invested in HEX, our frontier creative technology studio, to deploy AI talent directly with clients. This is a clear example of how we're expanding our go-to-market channel for enterprise solutions and tailoring new AI solutions to meet the needs of our clients. With Meta, WPP became the first advertising partner to pilot their newest creative intelligence solution, also integrated directly into WPP Open, giving our teams the ability to diagnose, generate, and scale high-performing creative with AI. Unilever is the inaugural client, with broader rollout planned in the coming months. That unique access puts our clients at the forefront of culture and insight, turning real data and media performance directly into stronger creative outcomes. With AWS, our enterprise solutions business signed a multi-year strategic collaboration agreement focused on operationalizing agentic AI for enterprise brands and helping clients move from AI experimentation to agentic marketing solutions at scale. And with Microsoft, we're working with MAI, Microsoft's in-house AI research team, to secure early access to their generative media models for integration into WPP Open. We're already an early enterprise partner on My Image 2, Microsoft's newest image generation model, bringing the best of Microsoft technology into WPP Open so that our clients gain new productivity and creative capabilities. Together, these partnerships give our clients early access to cutting-edge capabilities, co-innovation investment, direct lines into partner product teams, open important go-to-market channels, and new routes to market. All of this converges in one place, WPP Open, strengthening our competitive advantage and, most importantly, the value we deliver for clients. And there's much more to come. So moving on to cost savings, as part of the broader Elevate 28 program, we committed to 500 million pounds of gross annualized cost savings across the next three years, of which 100 million will be delivered in 2026. I'm pleased with our progress in the first half of the year, and I remain confident in our ability to hit these targets. That said, I do want to remind you that my priority, my North Star, is to get WPP back to positive organic growth. And our plan is to reinvest the targeted savings in FY 2026 into key growth areas, including media and enterprise solutions. Finally, we said in February that our portfolio review was complete and we were moving to action. In the first half, we completed more than 15 non-core asset disposals that will generate over 200 million pounds in sales proceeds in 2026. One great example is Excel. Thank you so much for joining us. We continue to make progress on asset disposals and will provide updates as appropriate. Proceeds will be used to improve financial flexibility, strengthen our balance sheet, and create further capacity to invest in growth. So those are the leading indicators, and they confirm that we are executing against the plan that we set out. But I want to take a couple minutes just to connect the what to the why, because the momentum that we're seeing isn't just about better execution. It's about being positioned in the right markets with the right proposition at the right time. You know, September 1st will be my one-year anniversary enroll, and this is a great opportunity for me to just step back and briefly share some personal reflections on how I see our industry and our company, because the conviction I have in our strategy has only deepened over the last few months. Firstly, we operate in an attractive market. You know, when I set out Elevate 28 last February, I said that I believe we're living in the golden age of marketing. I believe more strongly in that today than I did even a few months ago. We're forecasting that global ad spend will grow by 8.9% in 2026. That's up from our previous forecast of 7.1%. And as a share of GDP, advertising revenue is now at its highest level in almost 30 years. a clear sign of the important role that media plays, not just in shaping how consumers discover, evaluate, and engage with brands, but in helping businesses generate demand, differentiate, and drive long-term value. Media is everywhere, and increasingly, its influence is extending into adjacent and fast-growing markets, from social influence to commerce to high-velocity production and enterprise solutions. Secondly, We operate in an increasingly complex market. It's a really tough time to be a chief marketing officer. The fragmentation and constant change our clients face is pretty relentless across media channels, platforms, data environments, the AI and tech landscape and commerce touch points. And all that complexity is driving brands to consolidate around fewer, more integrated partners who can simplify things for them and help them grow. Those dynamics play directly into the strength of the new WPP. Thirdly, I think AI is fundamentally changing how we deliver growth for our clients. Look, for the past 20 years, the marketing industry has built its advantage around identity based consumer targeting. But marketing in the era of AI has changed and the industry has been slow to adapt. identity remains a useful starting point but identity alone cannot tell us how someone's preferences beliefs or behaviors changing in real time or what they might do next marketing has entered the era of intelligence and that has significant implications for brands to engage consumers today in a meaningful way brands need to access a diverse range of live data signals on What people are watching? What are they buying? Who are they following? What are they listening to? How are their interests changing in real time? Through WPP Open, clients can connect their own data with signals across WPP and our more than 350 data partners, giving them access to 5 billion consumers in more than 100 markets, drawing on trillions of real-time signals. We use AI to turn those signals into marketing intelligence that's unique to every brand, enabling them to anticipate consumer behavior, identify untapped growth audiences, and deliver higher ROI and engagement than traditional identity-based targeting. And here's the important part. We deliver these results without ever moving underlying client data out of the client's environment. Traditional identity-based systems require brands to move their data into a centralized third-party system. In doing so, brands risk giving up control of one of their most important and unique competitive advantages, their data and data insights. Our approach at WPP is fundamentally different. InfoSum, which we acquired in 2025, is what makes this possible. InfoSum is now embedded into WPP Open, enabling brands and partners to collaborate, connect real-time signals, and generate marketing intelligence without sharing, moving, or commingling their underlying customer data. This is more than just a technology choice. It reflects a fundamentally different belief about where competitive advantage should sit. We believe It should sit with our clients. And that brings me to my fourth and final reflection, which is the importance of trust. Not just consumer trust in brands, which, according to our research, is at an all-time low, but brand trust in agencies as well. At CanLion last month, I shared our WPP trust principles publicly for the first time. These are five foundational commitments to our clients. that define how we operate in the era of AI and give us a real point of differentiation in the market. Here are the five trust principles which we unpack in detail on our website at WPP.com. But our core commitment and belief is that our clients own and control their data and intelligence. Full stop. It is one of the most valuable and distinctive competitive advantage any brand has, and it should remain exclusively theirs. With WPP, underlying client data never moves. It stays exactly where it is in the client's environment and under the client's control. We believe this is a winning strategy. It now features in every client pitch, and it's one of the key reasons why we have the momentum we do. In an environment where AI is rapidly transforming our industry and trust is scarce, I believe our commitment to client data ownership and control will become increasingly important. Everything we do is in service of one objective to be the trusted growth partner to the world's leading brands Our momentum over the last nine months gives me confidence that we are firmly on the right path The organizational structure and operating model are in place our integrated client proposition is working the cultural shift towards accountability Clients obsession and a hunger to win together as one team is real We're delivering the stabilization phase of our plan, and the leading indicators demonstrate the progress we're making. WPP will be a fundamentally stronger, simpler, and more competitive company. Growth is our North Star, and we're well on our way. So looking ahead at what you can expect from us in the coming months, well, operationally, you will see us laser-focused on delivering for our clients, continuing to embed the changes we've made in service of driving their growth. strategically you'll see us continuing to invest to make our return to growth sustainable as we move to the build phase of our plan in 2027 and finally you'll see the improving trajectory in organic top line growth margin expansion and improved financial leverage that we anticipate in 2027 well we'll give you a comprehensive update on progress at the full year results early in 2027 I'm really eager for you to see the execution of this strategy along the way in real time. We've already hosted deep dive sessions for you into WPP Media and Creative, and we'll host further webinars specifically exploring next-gen production and enterprise solutions during the second half of 2026. So with that, I'm delighted to hand over to Joanne, and then we'll both come back to answer your questions. Joanne, over to you.

Thank you Cindy and good morning everyone. So let me start by taking you through the main headlines from our first half results which you can see on slide 20. Like for like revenue less pass-through costs fell 2.8% in the quarter which leaves the first half organic decline at 4.7%. This is consistent with our guidance of a decline in the mid to high single digits in the first half and reflects an improved sequential performance in particular at WPP Media as well as the benefit of easing comparables. You will recall last year we identified some one-off factors in Q2 that impacted performance. Adjusting for this, the underlying Q2 like-for-like decline was 3.8%, an improvement quarter-on-quarter. Turning to headline operating profits, this came in at £398 million, which is consistent with a margin of 8.4% and up 20 basis points year-in-year, benefiting from cost-saving actions and lower headline severance costs. Our headline diluted EPS is 15.1 pence don and the 20 pence reported last year mainly due to the normalization of our headline effective tax rate year and year and reflecting lower year and year profit turning to cash flow adjusted operating cash flow pre-working capital came in at 309 million pounds which includes 83 million pounds of non-headline cash restructuring costs the h1 performance brings total adjusted free cash flow including working capital moves over the last 12 months to 730 million pounds which alongside a one-off benefit from IFRS 9 amendments resulted in the reduction in adjusted net debt of £326 million year-in-year to £2.9 billion. Our average adjusted net debt meanwhile is down £100 million year-to-date and £79 million year-in-year. Moving on to slide 21 and performance across our business. As a reminder, we now only report on the basis of one segment, global integrated agencies, which is consistent with our strategic plan for WPP to operate as a single, unified business. Global integrated agencies saw a like-for-like decline of 2.8% in the second quarter, a sequential improvement from a 6.7% decline in the first quarter. FX contributed to a 0.6% tailwind, with a marginal M&A headwind of 0.1%, leaving a reported decline of 2.3% for the quarter. If we look at the trends by business, we saw a sequential improvement in our largest business units in the second quarter. The most significant move is within WPP media, which declined 2.8% in Q2 versus a decline of 8.3% in the first quarter. If we look at the drivers of this, easing comps were definitely a factor, and adjusting for the one-off factors I mentioned, underlying WPP media performance was a decline of around 5%, and improvements quarter on quarter. As anticipated, the impact of net new business losses was less significant in Q2 than in Q1, and we saw a lower drag from existing clients. Turning to WPP Creative, although we saw a top line decline of 4.9%, we delivered a sequential quarter on quarter improvement, reflecting the growing positive impact of new business, as well as again the impact of an improving trend with existing clients. The various disciplines captured within WCP creative, brand and design continue to see growth in the low to mid single digits, while PR is now declining in the very low single digits with an improving sequential trend and growth in their key region, North America. As discussed in February, we will give more precise detail on net sales performance for enterprise solutions from the 1st of January, 2027 And finally, WPP production continues to see positive growth with an improving quarterly trajectory supported by new business wins. Turning now to performance by region, North America declined by 4.3% in the second quarter following a decline of 7.8% in Q1, supported by a mild improvement in the impact from net client losses and an improving trend in client spend from existing clients, which is encouraging. In EMEA 2 we saw an improving trend with the first half down 4.3% and the second quarter down 3% with particularly strong trends in southern Europe. The latter benefited from the impact of one-offs we mentioned last year. We note a mild improvement in underlying performance quarter on quarter excluding these and despite the impact of ongoing uncertainty in the Middle East which was down around 10% in the first half. As part of our new regional disclosure we are now giving separate disclosure on Latin America and Asia-Pacific. In both cases, we saw an improvement in underlying trends. In Latin America, like for like in the half, declined 1.2%, but was up 0.9% in the second quarter, driven by strong growth in Argentina and Uruguay, albeit with a former tracking inflation. In Asia-Pacific, like for like was down 3.8% in the first half, but grew 0.3% in the second quarter. Within this, I'm pleased to report a return to growth in China, up 2.6% in the first half, and up double digits in the quarter, which reflects some timing benefits, but nevertheless we are seeing improvement trends in new business and a stabilisation of spend across local clients. We are encouraged by the performance in China and expect the business to continue to stabilise in the second half, albeit not at the level of like-for-like in Q2. By contrast, India saw a moderating trend into the second quarter, largely driven by the timing of events. We expect a resumption of growth in the second half. And turning finally to trends by client sector, we continue to see negative trends in CPG which was down 6% in the second quarter largely due to the impact of assignment losses but seeing a sequential improvement quarter on quarter helped by easing comparisons. Performance across technology clients is largely unchanged from the first quarter with the second quarter down 8.9% after a Q1 decline of 9.6% again impacted by the effect of assignment losses. As for our commentary at the Q1 results, we continue to see a high degree of polarisation across these categories. By contrast, we have seen a material sequential improvement within both healthcare and auto which have both returned to growth during the second quarter. While we have seen an improvement in the longer tail of local clients, we are also pleased to note the improvement in the performance of our top 25 clients. This group still saw a decline of 6.3% in the first half, but with the second quarter declining at 3.2%. As a reminder, this includes the impact of assignment losses and excluding this impact, our top 25 clients returned to growth in the quarter. On slide 22, we show the evolution of our headline operating profit and slide 23 bridges our headline operating margin from 8.2% in the first half of 2025 to 8.4% in 2026. a 0.2 percentage point uplift on both a reported and like-for-like basis. If I unpack the moving parts through the first half, starting with the impact of operational gearing and margin during the period, while our net sales is down £281 million, our overall staff costs, excluding headline severance and incentives, is down £245 million, reflecting the benefit of cost actions taken in the second half of 2025 and early in 2026. Adding in savings across other operating costs such as property and personal costs, this added around 90 basis points to margin. Lower headline severance and other associated costs added another percentage point. In completing the bridge to the full move and headline operating profit margin in the first half, investment in our growth drivers, including incentives, went up by 170 basis points, leaving H1 headline operating margin at 8.4%. I want to say at this stage, though, that the movements in the first half are not necessarily reflective of expected margin performance for the full year. Starting with severance, the positive move in the chart is representative of a £51 million reduction in headline severance and other associated costs year-in-year and will not have as significant an impact in the second half. On cost savings, the Elevate 28 savings will be skewed to the second half, reaching a run rate of £250 million by year-end, and achieving £100 million of savings in year. We note though that we start to anniversary the action taken last year at WPP Media in the second half, so these savings are against a tougher comparable. Turning to incentives and investment in growth areas, we continue to expect a significant uplift in the second half of the year. Reflecting this, while we are pleased with the first half margin performance, As expected and in line with our planning, we nevertheless expect second half margins to be down by as much as 200 basis points year-in-year as continued investment in growth drivers and the rebuild of incentives ramps up. Slide 24 shows our headline P&L. Overall reported revenue less pass-through costs was £4.7 billion, a decrease of 5.6% period-on-period. Moving down the P&L and a reminder that income from associates excludes any contribution from Cantor in accordance with IAS 28 due to nil coring value on our balance sheet. Net finance cost of £135 million was up slightly year in year, reflecting the additional coring costs of debt ahead of maturities later this year and early next. Our effective tax rate of 33.5% is up year-in-year, but note that the rate in 2025 was positively impacted by the benefit of credits from the successful resolution of the tax matter. We continue to expect the full-year effective tax rate to be in the range of 33% to 34%. Non-controlling interests of £18 million were down compared to the prior period, impacted by M&A and lower profit. And as a result of those factors, the headline diluted EPS of 15.1 pence is down 24.5%. Turning to the dividend, we indicated in February that we anticipated a full year dividend of 15 pence, and consistent with this, the Board has declared an interim dividend of 7.5 pence, which is flat year-in-year. Slide 25 looks at our adjusted operating cash flow and bridges the year-in-year movement in adjusted net debt to June 2026. Our 12-month adjusted operating cash flow before working capital to June 2026 was £1.1 billion. In addition to this, we saw an incremental benefit from working capital, which includes £169 million one-off impact from the IFRS 9 amendments. factoring in £66 million from the net impact of dividends from associates and to minorities and including M&A earnouts as well as £527 million of net interest and tax adjusted free cash flow for the last 12 months stands at £738 million net M&A and disposals was a £43 million outflow consisting of direct disposal proceeds of £80 million but against that we spent £123 million as we continue to invest in our commerce capabilities To round off the picture, cash dividends paid in the 12-month period were down significantly on the previous year, given the decision to reduce the dividend in July 2025. Adding in the impact of buybacks and other items which amounted to an outflow of £369 million, overall adjusted net debt was down £326 million year-on-year. Looking specifically at the first half, adjusted operating cash pre-working capital was £309 million, while free cash flow was a £725 million outflow, consistent with the seasonal build-up in working capital typically seen in the first half. I'm moving now to slide 26, which shows how net debt has trended since June 2025. As already mentioned, adjusted net debt at the end of June stood at £2.9 billion, down year-on-year, but up from year-end, reflecting our typical cash cycle. This also reflects the benefit from the IFRS 9 amendments. Average adjusted net debt better captures the normal pattern of working capital moves across the year and this is slightly down through the first half and down year in year at £3.3 billion. Our average adjusted net debt to headline EBITDA ratio at 30th of June is broadly unchanged since December 2025 despite the downward pressure on headline EBITDA. I want to re-emphasise that creating firm financial foundations is a core tenet of the Elevate28 plan and at the heart of this is a commitment to maintaining an investment-grade balance sheet. As discussed in February, we anticipate our leverage metrics to remain elevated in 2026 before starting to come down in 2027 and beyond. In this context, our balance sheet remains robust. The weighted average maturity of our £5.1 billion of bond debt is 5.7 years, and this has an average coupon rate of 3.7%. Meanwhile, our total available liquidity across the group stood at £4.1 billion at 30 June 2026, including a $2.5 billion committed RCF which matures in February 2031 and remains undrawn. neither our bond debt nor our rcf have any financial covenants and our credit remains investment grade and finally turning to slide 27 which shows our guidance for the full year and starting with the outlook for like for like revenue less pastor costs in february we indicated that at that point we anticipated the impact of gross client losses to be in the range of 500 to 600 basis points while we expected the impact of gross wins to be more positive than last year, with a phasing of wins and losses consistent with an improving trajectory through the year. Based on our new business performance in the second quarter, while we would estimate the impact of incremental losses to be at the top end of the 500 to 600 basis point range, the impact of wins means that as we progress through the second half, we expect the year-in-year drag from net new business to continue to lessen and as such we remain confident in an improving trajectory. A key unknown is the trend with existing clients and while we are encouraged by the Q2 performance, we note the ongoing uncertainty in the Middle East as well as the polarisation of spend patterns both between and within sectors. Reflecting this, we take a balanced view of the outlook and having seen each one like-for-like decline at 4.7%, we expect like-for-like revenue less pass-through costs to decline low to mid-single digits in the second half. We continue to expect a return to growth during 2027. Turning to headline operating margin, while we are encouraged by the H1 margin performance as we discussed, the first half was helped by the lower headline severance and cost savings. We anticipate investment in our growth drivers, as well as the rebuild of incentives to step up significantly in the second half. Reflecting this, we still expect headline operating margin to be in the range of 12% to 13%, consistent with the second half margin decreasing by as much as 200 basis points. As per our original Elevate28 commentary, we continue to anticipate 2026 to be the low point in terms of profitability and expect margins to rebuild from 2027. Looking beyond the net sales and margin guidance, our expectation for cash flow is unchanged, with adjusted operating cash flow pre-working capital in the range of £800 to £900 million. As a reminder, this includes the anticipated restructuring costs associated with the Elevate28 programme, and historical restructuring programmes. Excluding these, we would anticipate adjusted operating cash flow before working capital of £1 billion to £1.1 billion. Looking further down the cash flow, as you know, we don't guide on working capital given the scope for this to show volatility around year end. However, given progress with asset disposals to date, we expect the overall impact of disposal-related activity, some of which will come via direct disposal proceeds and some via associate dividends, to contribute at least £200 million to our cash flow. We continue to make progress with our asset disposal programme and are working on a number of future potential asset disposals and will provide updates as appropriate. finally we continue to expect the improvement in average adjusted net debt to be sustained across the balance of the year so that wraps up the formal part of our presentation and both Cindy and I will now be delighted to take your questions we'll now begin the Q&A session in terms of housekeeping if you could please state your name and your organization that would be very much appreciated

Please note, for those joining via the webcast, there's the opportunity to type in questions, and I will run through these at the end of the call. But in the meanwhile, Operator Desmond, can you open the lines to questions, please?

Certainly. Thank you. If you'd like to ask questions, please press star followed by 1 and 1 on your telephone keypad. To cancel a request, you can press star 1 and 1 again. One moment for our first question. Your first question comes from the line of Ciaran Donnelly from Citi. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Ciaran Donnelly from Citi. Two for me. One just on quantifying the net new business contribution for 2027. uh can you give us that number of basis points and if you don't want to give us the exact number can you just talk about how that contribution has evolved since the q1 update given the moving part in terms of client losses and client wins and then to just in terms of the pipeline of activity heading into h2 there's clearly a lot of unknowns but just could you give the sense of the balance of pitches versus defense and just in terms of activity overall thanks

um good morning kieran thanks for the questions let me take them um i i think you mean that your business in 2026 right not 2027 um but Let me take you through the numbers on that one. So in terms of net new business, it's really our growth wins less our growth losses. So let me unpick that for you. And before I do, I'll just say that, you know, very encouraged by the new business momentum that we saw continue in Q2. Our growth losses for the full year are at the top end of the range that we shared at the start of the year, so around 600 basis points. and we'll see those growth also fairly steadily through the year but with a slight um easing in the second half of the year and on the growth wins we said at the start of the year that they were more than fiscal year 2025 and uh with the business performance in the q2 we're not comfortably ahead of growth wins in 2025 um for this year which is which is very encouraging Now, I do expect nightly business to be a drag for the full year, and I expect it to be a drag in every quarter of this year. However, with those new business wins, I do expect that drag to ease as we go through each quarter, and indeed we saw an easing of that from Q1 into Q2. So hopefully that gives you some colour on what we're seeing, and obviously a big area of focus for us. In terms of the pipeline, the pipeline is, I would describe it as very healthy. Last year we talked about the lower volume of e-business and we typically see, we did expect to see somewhat of a catch-up in 2026 and we're seeing that. So the pipeline is higher than last year and there are some defensive and offensive opportunities within that. What I would say is it's much more Europe than what we've seen in the past. So, as many of the pitches that we're in, there is some opportunity for winning more revenue on net sales, and there's some revenue net sales that we are defending in those pitches. So, it's a very balanced, you know, between defensive and offensive. And as you heard from Cindy, you know, very, very focused on continuing that new business momentum, but also focused on our client retention as well. okay thanks uh i was wondering just in terms of 2027 where we have a whether we have a picture now um obviously i get it things can change between now and 2027 but just you know based on what you can see today look i think it's just a little bit too early to start talking about you know net new business impacts in 2027 and i talked about the pipeline and looking to continue to hold on to the momentum that we've seen in the last three quarters and on retention to minimise the loss of it. Yeah, I think it's just a little bit too early here in the comments on 27. All right.

Thanks, Monique. Thanks. Thank you for the questions. Please hold for our next question. Next questions will come from the line of Adam Berlin from Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Yeah, hi. Good morning. A couple of questions as well. You talked a little bit about improving momentum in terms of existing clients having fewer cuts in their spending in Q2 versus Q1. Can you just give us a little bit more color on what sectors you saw that in and what you think was driving that additional investment in marketing than we've seen in previous quarters? Because that seems to be quite an important change in the trend that we've seen previously. Secondly, you talked about China, which had this very dramatic improvement in growth in Q2 versus Q1, and you mentioned some timing effects. Can you just give us a little bit more detail about what's happening in China? That would be very helpful. And then thirdly, I've noticed that WPP Media is now like 46%, 47% of your revenue, where it used to be 40%, 41% as you restructured the business. What has gone into WPP Media that wasn't there before?

Okay, let me take all of those, Adam. Just in terms of the improving momentum in existing clients, you've characterized it correctly. You know, we've had a challenging time. Last year in particular, we saw significant cuts to spend around about this time. And it's been very encouraging that that is now stabilizing. And, you know, we're seeing a lower drag from those. We talked about the performance of the top 25 clients. There was significant improvement where they were down 9.4%. in the first quarter and down 3.4% in the second quarter. Obviously, there was some confidence. But specifically to your question on sectors, you know, in Q2, we saw actually growth in the auto and healthcare sectors. So those sectors doing very well for us. And across CPG and tech, we saw, you know, those sectors really impacted by the client losses that we've had across CPG and tech. And in tech as well, a little bit of reduced budgets, more focused on our hardware tech clients. But encourage our existing clients, you know, that stabilization, and continue to focus on that. In terms of China, you know, China has been a challenging market for us for some time, where we have seen double-digit declines. We did talk in the Q1 that we expected to see an improving trajectory, and indeed we did in the Q2, which was at several digits. There are some timing factors within that, and I wouldn't expect that level of like-for-like to continue in the second half, but I would expect China's performance to continue to stabilize. And just a little bit more color in that, you know, we have seen important retentions, Huawei and Uber in that market, but also Wings, we talked about Honor China, and really we're seeing a good stabilization in that market, particularly in our media business. And even in creative, you know, we were down single digits, albeit high single digits, which is an improvement from the trajectory that we have been on. We launched Open in China in May. and so a lot of activity in that market, and it remains an important market for us and our clients, and a little bit more balance between global and local clients. In terms of media, yes, the share of net sales from media has gone up from 41% to 46%. So some of the agencies that used to sit within spec agencies, we've moved under media as part of our new segmental reporting. The most significant agencies are CMI, which are much more appropriately sat under our media business. So that's really driven that change.

Thank you very much. Please hold for our next questions. The next question comes from the line of Adrian Saison from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

yes good morning everyone and congratulations on the progress of your your turnaround um cindy i think in an interview this morning you mentioned that you expect some some deflationary impacts on pricing from ai could you quantify this for us um and then maybe for for joanne um just conceptually high level like why would the investments and the restructuring cost around elevate 28 would be second half loaded. I think you spent something like 90 million pounds out of the 250 restructuring costs. For example, you've talked about the margins going down quite significantly in the second half. I'm just wondering why on those costs, perhaps H1 loaded, why would they be H2 loaded?

Yeah, should I take the first question? Thanks, Adrian. I think it would be hazardous for me to try to quantify the AI, the deflationary impact of AI. What I said was that I think AI obviously presents both risks and opportunities. And like every technology platform shipped in history, I think we are going to see some short-term deflationary impacts on pricing as AI tooling drives productivity gains and reduces our cost to serve. Our clients are going to expect us to pass those gains on to them. But as we help our clients optimize their marketing investments overall, we can also help them reinvest those savings into innovation and transformation. And that's represents an expansive opportunity to build our footprint and to capture more addressable clients than through service integration and cross-sell. And I think with our new structure and operating model, we're very well positioned to capture that. So on balance, what I said was my view is unequivocally that AI represents a growth opportunity for us to really innovate our proposition and reimagine growth for our clients.

do you want to take the second yeah and thanks for the question adrian and i'm going to answer a little bit more broadly but i will cover investments in restructuring costs so in terms of you know the h1 h2 margin i just reminded that we generate a third of our profit in h1 and two-thirds in the second half of the year so it's much more skewed through the second half in in the first half of the year As I shared in my pre-prepared remarks, we had some benefits from the structural cost actions that we took in media in H2 last year, so obviously we get the benefit of those in H1, but there was one carry-through in H2. And also related to that, we had severance costs last year, which we took through headline profit, and that drove a 1 percentage point benefit and margin in the first half of this year. In terms of, as we go into the second half, we obviously want to move tailwinds, but we will see the elevate 28 cost in years, 100 million, but I would refer to in premiums, we are on track to deliver those, and those savings will be largely skewed to the second half of the year. Like any other mergers, which we have very successfully executed, We've taken our time in the first half to make sure that we had the right operating model design in place, market leads, regional leads are all appointed and we are taking those actions now and we're starting to see really those restructuring costs ramp up related to those actions and also the savings coming through in the second half. in terms of investments so really i think of investments um in two buckets first of all is incentives we did um you know start to rebuild our incentives in the first half but again they're very much skewed to the second half i'd expect those to continue to to rebuild in the second half and in other investments you know cindy and i've talked about our key priority is to get back to growth encouraged by the improving trajectory that we've seen and we will continue to invest in the business particularly in the areas of commerce solutions media and data and to ensure that we are going to be able to drive that sustained growth and the guidance for the second half and holding through your margins helps but to extend really gives us that flexibility to make sure that we are continuing that investment in the second half so hopefully that helps it does and if i can just make it one more perhaps for both of you

i think john you talked about the fact that that your business would be better for driving to the second half versus h1 you talked about the fact that top 25 had returned to growth q2 versus q1 i think the comparison base is a bit easier to just high level what what are we missing to to get your look to missing a digit decline that perhaps sounds uh on the conservative side maybe i think on that again it's important to note that we think about the one-offs um which we shared this time last year

And if you strip those out, the Q2 like-to-like was a decline of 3.8%. So that's the starting point as we go into the second half. We had an easier comp in Q2, around 3%. The comp in Q3 is similar, so we don't have that comp tailwind, albeit in Q4 we get 1% easier comp. And then, you know, as you noted, the net new business will ease. Really, that leaves our clients' existing spend. You know, the macro environment, geopolitical environment remains very uncertain. We still continue to see a high degree of polarization within our clients and across sectors in terms of that spend. And so we've reflected that in our guidance at either end of the range. And we want to give a balanced guidance that really does reflect all of those drivers and considerations.

Well understood. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for the questions. Our next question comes from the line of Jerome Baudin from OdoBHF. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning also. It's Jerome Baudin from OdoBHF. I have a few questions. So the first one would be on the disposals or the 200 million at least for 2026. So a few questions. Is it the cashing in tax or just the announcement? Is it net of tax? And should we expect more in 2027? And just to understand if the review is now fully finished, and maybe just to conclude on that, is there an asset that you have finally decided to keep that was under review? That's my first question. The second one is just to come back on what you said on incentives. The charge increased quite a lot in H1, so I understand that H2 will still be up. but just I know it's difficult because it's linked to budget screen but what should we expect roughly in terms of incentives for this year should it be flat versus 2025 up or maybe between 2024 and 2025 that's my second question and lastly on just a more general question to get an update on the enterprise solution agenda my understanding is that some capabilities are still spread across the other agencies so my question is how much of the business has now moved under one leadership and one commercial pipeline and can you just update on the final organization that your target for that business in terms of independence versus media and creative thank you thanks john let me take the first two and cindy can pick up the question and find solutions so just from

disposal so we have 54 million in the first half cash flow related to disposals and we expect for the full year that to increase to at least 200 million pounds of cash and that is net of tax Maybe I'll just give a little bit more colour on what that is. We really have two buckets, I think, if you want to think about our disposals. We talked in February about the portfolio review that we did as part of Elevate 28, and that was where we identified assets in the group which were great assets, but we felt that they were of more value to the outside of the group than inside, and we have initiated processes on those assets earlier in the year, and those processes are ongoing. So no update on those today, but we will, of course, update the market as appropriate. In terms of the £200 million, this really relates to the long scale of smaller agencies and associates and investments that we have across the group. And as we've got very focused on cash, we have been looking at rationalising that long scale, simplifying the business and raising cash proceeds. And I'm really pleased with the £200 million that we will generate this year. You associated with those asset sales um and you know part of that is the excel business that was um related historically to kantar and as though we will carry on with that rationalization so i would expect some more in 2027 and and you know in terms of the review itself um you asked whether or not we've decided to retain any assets as part of that portfolio review we did look at the assets and there were many that we said these are important and we can build and carry on investing in those areas uh commerce in the speaker area but others that we identified as potential uh co opportunities which we're getting on with in terms of incentives um look last year because of our performance our incentives were at an unusually low level and so in 26 as part of our planning assumptions we are assuming that we will rebuild our incentives pot and we've done some of that in h1 we'll carry on with that rebuild in the second half i think certainly they will be higher than they were in 2025 is our current expectation and probably uh closer to levels that you saw in 2024 if that's helpful

Why don't I come in, Jerome, on enterprise solutions? I mean, this is a great market for us with a 7% taker, so it's an attractive market for us to be in. We already have $1.8 billion of revenue in enterprise solutions with around 10,000 specialists. So as you suggested, we're consolidating these assets into one business and really scaling it across the group. And I think what's differentiated about this business is that we're not sort of selling bolt-on services from a separate company. It really was built from within VML originally and designed to be deeply integrated with creative production and media. And we are predominantly focused on marketing operations and the CMO, where we have already, you know, quite strong historical relationships. So WPB Enterprise Solutions went live on the 1st of July. It already has a number of active client engagements and a healthy pipeline of in areas like crm customer experience commerce content supply chain and ai marketing transformations um you know these are probably the fastest growing parts of the enterprise solution landscape so i'm really excited about the future of this business under jeff gayhead's leadership and i believe there's an investor webinar coming up soon and i would encourage you to participate and learn more thank you very much

questions please hold for our next question the next question comes from the line of steve lietti from deutsche numis the line is now open please go ahead um yeah morning um i've got three um one just going back to the kind of run rate on on new business sorry to come back to it

but just can you give us any kind of feel in terms of the first half what the kind of relative effects were between the gross losses and the wins in the first half and just give us a bit more help into the second half there um i'm just finding it obviously you've given us the the losses but i'm just finding it quite difficult you know on the new stuff that's the first question uh second question i thought you might like to to give us um a rough estimate if you took enterprise solutions on a kind of pro forma basis what the life-for-life growth would be um either historically or or anything you can give us there or help thank you and then the third is um i know on the exits um you said it's quite small um just any actual hard number you can give us for pro forma revenue and profit that's in your consolidated numbers because i'm presuming the cantar business excel is not in your numbers at all uh from a revenue and profit perspective um just any color there thanks yeah let me start at the bottom and work my way up steve so in terms of the exits uh you're you're right excel isn't in our numbers nor is it in cantar's numbers

um and that's a you know that's a significant contribution towards that 200 million the others are really associated from investments so it's a very very immaterial number in terms of our overall income and and really no impact on revenue um on enterprise solutions we've said that we will report our like for like uh for enterprise solutions from the 1st of july 2027 this year is really all about building that building out the three sales channels that we've talked about and then enterprise solutions. I think it's fair to say that the like-to-like that we're seeing in ES is approximately what we're seeing more broadly across WPT creatives. And in terms of the run rates, look, I don't really want to get drawn into giving you net new business by quarters and by halves, but to help you a little bit, in the past I think we've always talked about net new business having a plus amount of 150 basis points impact obviously 25 was a difficult year for us in terms of parent losses and space to come to drive this year and that drag is pretty steady as I said through the year slightly lower in the second half so we had a significant drag from that in the first half the new business really started these business wins really started from 24 and they will obviously take a couple of quarters to ramp up So as we look through the year, the new business contribution is much more significant in the second half than it is in the first half. And therefore, you know, in the first half, we did see a bigger drag than that 150 basis points that we would have seen historically. But we are expecting that to ease as we go through the second half. And indeed, we saw that starting to ease in the Q2. Hopefully that helps.

Yeah, thanks. Thanks.

for the questions. One moment for our next questions. Next question comes from the wire or Julian drops from Barclays. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning. Thank you for taking the question. The first one is based on your second guidance of low to miscible digit decline, organic for the full year should be broadly around minus four. And you said losses minus 600 basis points and the wins comfortably more than last year, 250. So let's call that 300. which would indicate that your existing clients are declining 1% this year. Last year, you did minus 5.4, which was really minus four existing clients and minus one and a half account losses, 400 losses, 250 win. Why are existing clients three points better outside of net new business? It might not be the exact math and it might not be three points, but it's clearly much better. So why? That's my first question. The second one is on China, up 16%. You said timing benefits. What do you mean exactly? And what China would have grown without those timing benefits? And if you cannot give us that, when you said stabilization in the second half, does that mean flat or would it be still negative? And then on portfolio, you said you've decided what you need to sell and it was ongoing. So if you are successful in what you want to do,

uh so with you much bigger benefit than 200 million um sometimes in the next 12 months thank you okay thanks julian i can always rely on you for the detailed questions um so just in terms of existing plans look and if i think you got to this time last year you know the taurus kicked in in april and you know we saw a sharp decline in client spend. You lose clients so much it was a sharp decline in spend in the back end of that Q2 and that continued through the second half. So existing client spend is a real drive for us last year and it's very encouraging to see that that has stabilised. It's still a drive in the first half but we're very, very focused on our client delivery, and we see an opportunity to continue to grow with our existing clients. We did say that the spend is quite polarized still within sectors and across different clients. And so seeing a bit less polarization, a little bit more growth will be helpful. But it's a big focus for us. I think it's really that stabilization and really last year, these material cuts that we saw really from June last year that now is not happening to the same extent. um in terms of china um the the one off well that one also timing effects um were really in some of the contacts in our media business i don't really want to get too drawn into it but i just say that in the second half i expect china to continue to stabilize certainly not at the level that we saw in the second quarter um but a continued stabilization across our media business in particular so you have been at high double digital clients for some time i'm not expecting that in the second half and and for the three years whole uh overall uh an improvement on china year on year and in terms of the portfolio i just go back to what i said earlier because it's difficult to say much more than that we have the portfolio review that we did and the assets where we have on with processes ongoing on and if we are successful in doing what we want then we will generate you know more cash proofing from those and we'll update on those in due course and then on the long tail you know of course you know we've got actually with some case this year and there will be more opportunities to continue to rationalize that long tail into 2027 and so i expect some more cash proceeds from those in 2027 perhaps not to the same extent as in 2026 thank you thanks our next question comes from the life of enigma scrum bernstein your line is open please go ahead

Good morning. My first question is on the Middle East. I think you said you were down 10% in the first half. What is your guidance including for the Middle East for the second half? The second question is on personnel costs. I think if we take your assumptions of low single-digit to mid-single-digit decline in the second half on the top line, do we expect personnel costs to at least decline mid-single-digit if not more? and and and and and and and and and

plan high single digits in Q2, so slightly better. And I think it's very difficult to give guidance on the Middle East, just given the tragic events that are unfolding over there. And it's incredibly volatile as well. So in our planning assumptions, we've been very balanced in assuming, you know, what happens in that market. You know, we are seeing some markets, you know, getting back to close to others, you know, still declining to the same extent as we've done in Q1. So, you know, our top priority in that region is our people and making sure that they're safe. In terms of personal costs, this just really reflects our incredible discipline around discretionary spend and really focusing the investment that we are making in the areas that will drive the highest return on investment for us. So I'm not going to say anything more than we'll continue to stay focused on those in the balance of year.

Yeah, thanks for your question. Look, I'm with clients every single day and frequently reading client pitches as well, and I In terms of what's driving our new business momentum, I would say our clients are responding very well to our integration and simplification. And that's good because all the changes we made were in direct response to client feedback. And now that we've made the changes, clients are responding positively. And I think what's behind that is that we're showing up as one WPP instead of multiple different agencies so we can really put the right talent in front of the right clients at the right time without all of the WTP open platform and our narrative around data. is very compelling and i think clients are starting to understand that data ownership and control in the era of ai is one of the most important competitive advantages that they have and i think our our narrative and the way our solution is architected is very differentiated so those are some of the things that are driving our wins um it's always hard to say what's driving our losses um first of all i would say we're in a very fiercely competitive market and defensive pitches uh are just the future of this landscape you know we're not going to win them all and frankly we don't need to win them all uh we take every loss as a learning opportunity uh and i think that's what growth mindset's all about it helps us drive a culture of continuous improvement you know sometimes it's just a personal preference Sometimes it's a pre-existing relationship. It's hard to say, but we take the losses every single time. We take them as learning opportunities, and we go deep to try to understand and improve for the next time. So hopefully that helps. Thank you.

Thank you for the questions. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask questions on the phone, you may press star 1 for the white one. There are no questions at this time. Please continue.

Thank you very much. So that represents the end of the telephone question and answer session. I do have some questions from the webcast. A lot of them have been already addressed, but maybe going through a couple. A question on India. There was a decline in the second half. Are you looking for an improvement in the second half? yes i mean this is really just a timing of a sporting event in india that can drive a lot of volatility and we're expecting yes to get back to growth in the second half so the second question on um capital allocation uh is on gross debt um does does is reducing gross debt a a capital allocation priority does that mean we should expect more debt tenders

So, look, we talked in Elevate 20 years about our capital allocation framework and the importance to us and the priority of maintaining an investment-grade balance sheet, which we're very focused on doing. Our leverage is elevated. It was 2.18 times for the 12 months ending June 2026, and we are very focused on bringing down that leverage. I am encouraged by the fact that our adjusted net debt year-on-year is down from 3.2 billion to 2.9 billion and indeed our average adjusted net debt was also down so that leverage that higher leverage is really being driven by the lower level of profits and so yes we are expecting to continue to bring down the debt but the bigger driver for our leverage reduction will be that as well as improving our underlying profits and one final one is on the comp report I think it's well covered in the

in the prepared remarks, but just to be complete. Talked about EV comps from Q2 2025. Can you quantify those and remind us what they are?

So the EV comp in Q2 was just under 3%, so it's about 2.9%. And then as we go into the second half, we won't have that tailwind in Q3, so the comp is similar in Q3 as it is in Q2, but then it eases again in Q4 by about 1%. Okay.

And so with that, we've reached the end of the Q&A session. I will now pass over to Cindy for some concluding remarks.

Thank you, Tom. That's great. Look, as I approach my one-year anniversary in this role, I am encouraged by our performance in the first half. We're on track, and I continue to be optimistic about WPP's future. I think with the organizational structure and operating model now in place, the focus for us now is on successfully delivering the stabilized phase over the balance of the year. we look forward to updating you on progress at our q3 in october and four-year results in february 27th as a reminder we'll also host further sessions specifically around our next gen production model and enterprise solutions business during the second half so that you can get a clearer view of the work underway in those two critical areas Finally, as we continue this journey, I'd just like to say thank you. First and foremost, to our clients and partners, thank you for your continued partnership and for trusting in us with your extraordinary brands. In a market defined by complexity and rapid change, working alongside you to navigate these shifts and put AI to work and unlock new growth is just an incredible privilege for all of us here at WPP. To our people across the globe, thank you. Transforming a company of our scale is hard work, it requires a lot of grit and agility and willingness to unlearn and learn and relearn every day and i'm just so impressed with the resilience of our people their creativity passion and how they've embraced our new purpose and mission and executing on the plan it's relentless but it underpins all of the progress you've heard from us today and finally to our shareholders i'd like to thank you sincerely for your ongoing support engagement and belief in our strategy We remain laser-focused on delivering on our commitments, strengthening our financial foundations, and building the path back to consistent, profitable growth. So with that, thank you again, and I will close the call.