WPP posts fifth record year

The world’s biggest advertising company WPP, who own agencies JWT and Ogilvy & Mather, have posted their fifth record year in a row after a string of major account wins.

Net new business rose to £5.6 billion, with the company reporting fourth-quarter like-for-like net sales growth of 4.9 percent. The full-year figure rose to 3.3 percent, slightly ahead of forecasts.

However, WPP’s CEO Martin Sorrell warned that “despite this strong performance, the always on, Don Draperish general industry optimism seems misplaced.”

Overall revenue rose 6.1 percent to £12.2 billion.

Strong profits for LSE on merger

The London Stock Exchange Group posted a 31 percent rise in pre-tax profits this morning, with a figure of £643.4 million.

The company, who also own Borsa Italiana, are currently in talks with Deutsche Boerse to create a pan-European trading house, potentially boosting profits and creating substantial revenue.

Disappointing figures for Japanese economy

According to a poll by Reuters analysts, the Japanese economy is forecast to have shrunk by an annualised 1.5 percent between October and December 2015. The quarter-on-quarter gross domestic product was seen down 0.4 percent, unchanged from the initial estimate.

A further Reuters poll also showed that the Japanese government is expected to cut its negative interest rates further to minus 0.2 percent at or before its July meeting, as a series of recent measures fail to stabilise the country’s rocky economy.

04/03/2016