Shares in advertising firm WPP (LON:WPP) rose nearly 7 percent at market open on Monday, despite reporting a fall in revenue for the first quarter.
First-quarter revenue fell 4 percent due to foreign exchange headwinds, seeing an overall decline to £3.56 billion. Howeverm on a constant currency basis the figure rose by 2 percent, and saw a 0.8 percent boost like-for-like.
The advertising firm has been under increasing pressure over the last couple of weeks, suffering a management crisis after long-serving chief executive and founder Martin Sorrell resigned over a misconduct investigation. Mark Read and Andrew Scott have been appointed as joint chief operating officers.
The results come just after the news that CVC Capital Partners are interested in buying Kantar, WPP’s market research arm.
CVC declined to comment on its interest in Kantar but according to the Financial Times, a “person with knowledge of the talks” cautioned that they were at a very early stage.
Shares in WPP (LON:WPP) are currently trading up 6.84 percent at 1,227.00 (0818GMT).
