Omnicom Group Inc.

Good afternoon and welcome to the Omnicom third quarter 2023 earnings release conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session. To participate, please press 1 then 0. If you need assistance during the call, please press star then 0. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to introduce you to your host for today's conference, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations, Gregory Lemberg. Please go ahead.

Thank you for joining our third quarter 2023 earnings call. With me today are John Wren, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Phil Angelostro, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. On our website, omnicomgroup.com, we've posted a press release along with a presentation covering the information we'll review today, as well as a webcast of this call. An archived version will be available when today's call concludes. Before we start, I'd like to remind everyone to read the forward-looking statements and non-GAAP financial and other information that we've included at the end of our investor presentation. Certain of the statements made today may constitute forward-looking statements, and these statements are our present expectations. Relevant factors that could cause actual results to differ materially are listed in our earnings materials and in our SEC filings, including our 2022 Form 10-K. During the course of today's call, we will also discuss certain non-GAAP measures. You can find the reconciliation of these to the nearest comparable GAAP measures in the presentation. We will begin the call with an overview of our business from John, then Phil will review our financial results for the quarter, and after our prepared remarks, we will open the line up for your questions. I'll now hand the call over to John.

Thank you, Greg. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for our third quarter results. Before we discuss the quarter, I want to touch on something that is top of mind for many of us. The horrific attacks on Israel and the subsequent war have been devastating to witness. We've seen a complete lack of humanity displayed and that hate has no place in this world. We mourn the innocent lives lost and our thoughts remain with all those personally impacted. Turning to our results, Organic growth was 3.3% for the quarter, which is in line with our expectations. Operating income margin was 15.7%, and diluted earnings per share for the quarter was $1.86, up 5.1% versus the comparable period in 2022. Our results for the quarter keep us on pace to maintain our full-year organic growth target of 3.5 percent to 5 percent, and our operating margin target of 15 percent to 15.4 percent. Phil will cover our results in more detail during his remarks. Our cash flow continues to support our primary uses of cash, dividends, acquisitions, and share repurchases, and our liquidity and our balance sheet remain very strong. During the quarter, we continue to make solid progress on our key strategic priorities to position Omnicom for sustainable and profitable long-term growth. Starting on the talent front, we made several key leadership changes as part of our succession planning. Alex Lubar was named Global CEO of DVB Worldwide. Alex served as the Global President and Chief Operating Officer of DVB and succeeds Mario Halloran, who will become chairman. In addition, Glenn Lomas, currently CEO of DVB EMEA, has been elevated to global president and chief operating officer in partnership with Alex. Nancy Reyes is moving from her post as CEO of TVWA New York to become CEO of the Americas at BBDO. Nancy succeeds St. John Walsh, who has been with BBDO for 27 years. Guy Marks, previously Omnicom Media Group's CEO of EMEA, was named the CEO of PHD Worldwide. Guy succeeds Philippa Brown, who is leaving the media industry after nearly four decades. Dan Clays, who led Omnicom's Media Group UK as CEO, will fill the CEO of OMG EMEA's position. I want to congratulate Alex, Glenn, Nancy, Guy, and Dan and extend my gratitude to Marty, Sinjin, and Philippa for their many years of service to Omnicom. This series of announcements is a testament to our emphasis on succession planning and ensuring our networks and practice areas have the right teams to lead them into the future. During the quarter, we continue building our generative AI capabilities with the rollout of OmniAssist, a proprietary version of ChatGBT that enhances every task within Omni. OmniAssist is just one example of how we are improving our capabilities and efficiency through generative AI. We continue assessing how generative AI will affect the way we work across the organization and preparing ourselves for the future. We broaden our capabilities through strategic acquisitions in high-growth areas in the quarter. In July, Omnicom Media Group acquired iPromo and Global Shopper, two of Brazil's leading connected commerce and retail media agencies. These acquisitions create a dedicated end-to-end e-commerce and retail media performance agency in the Brazilian market for Omnicom Media Group. OPRG strengthened its services through the acquisition of Plus Communications, a top public affairs firm, and FP1 Strategies, a leading political consultancy. The Beltway-based acquisitions further solidified OPRG's leadership position and portfolio in public affairs and crisis communications, particularly in the healthcare and technology. We recently announced the formation of Omnicom Advertising Services India, comprised of Omnicom's creative agencies located in India, BBDO, DDB, and TBWA. Omnicom Advertising Services will be able to offer the best creative capabilities and talent for our clients across the group. The formation of Omnicom Advertising Services India follows the launch of our global delivery services and centers of excellence in India, which we announced earlier this year. Today, we have over 4,000 people in global centers of excellence in four major cities, supporting our clients and agencies around the world. We are rapidly scaling the operations and expect to triple the size over the next 24 to 36 months. Our centers of excellence are helping our company transform from within. improving our client offerings, and providing operating efficiencies. While we position Omnicom for the long term, we're driving growth through significant new business wins. Some of these wins this quarter include Omnicom Media Group won the global media business for Uber and HSBC. Beiersdorf selected OMD as its media agency of record for Europe and North America. On the creative front, Adam and Eve DVB picked up Amazon's creative business in Europe. Omnicom Health Group and our advertising collective also continue to grow their relationship with Novartis, expanding in oncology and winning significantly in pharma, including their Reno portfolio. Finally, TBWA was awarded the creative duties for Telstra, Australia's largest mobile network. Overall, we're pleased with our financial results and our progress on our key strategic initiatives. While we remain optimistic entering the fourth quarter, as in past years, our performance in the fourth quarter will be impacted by the amount of year-end project spend that our clients execute and that our agencies are successful capturing. We continue to plan cautiously given the uncertainties in the macroeconomic and geopolitical environment including high interest rates, oil prices, instability due to the wars in Ukraine and Israel, and the continuing risk of a recession in the United States. I will now turn the call over to Phil for a closer look at our financial results. Phil?