Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our first quarter results. I'm joined today by Tom Singlehurst, our Head of Investor Relations.

Hopefully, you've had time to read the press release from this morning. There's also a full deck that accompanies this session with our usual disclosures, including our cautionary statement, which you should read carefully and take note of.

Before we dive into the numbers, this is, of course, the first quarter that we are reporting on since we outlined the Elevate 28 strategy. As this is a multiyear plan focused on returning WPP to growth.

While it is still early days, we are very much on track against our strategic plan and encouraged by the client and employee response to the actions we are taking and the changes we are making. Driving this scale of change takes time and, of course, won't be linear, but there are definitely encouraging signals, which I will talk about shortly.

Before that, I'm going to share some detail on our first quarter financial performance, and then I will open the call up for your questions. Starting with our operating performance in the first quarter on slide 4, like-for-like revenue less pass-through costs fell 6.7% in the first quarter, with organic revenue growth, a key metric disclosed by some of our peers, down 4%.

Both figures represent a mild sequential improvement from the fourth quarter of last year and were in line with our expectations. The impact from M&A was negligible, and FX represented a headwind of 2.1% in the quarter, resulting in a reported decline in net revenue of 8.9%.

You will find further detail on performance by business segment, geography, and client industry on slide 5 of the presentation, but I would call out the following features of performance in the first quarter. Starting with business segments, WPP Media saw a like-for-like decline of 8.5% in the first quarter.

While this was a sequential improvement from a double-digit decline in Q4 '25, we continue to see a significant drag from gross account losses, while new business won in the fourth quarter and in the first quarter of this year will take time to ramp up. Performance across our non-media businesses showed a slight decline quarter on quarter.

However, we delivered growth across WPP Production and our larger specialist agencies, including Landor, Design Bridge, and CMI. By geography, the shape of performance largely reflects account losses, which weighed most heavily on North America and the UK.

Elsewhere, we see signs of stabilization, including sequential improvement in Asia-Pacific and with pockets of growth in markets including India, Italy, and Japan. I want to also mention performance in the Middle East, which represents just under 2% of our business.

The region saw a like-for-like decline of 12.6% in the quarter, following low single-digit growth in Q4 2025. With the ongoing conflict, we expect the Q1 trends in the region to continue through the second quarter.

By client sector, CPG in particular reflects the impact from client assignment losses. Meanwhile, we see a high degree of polarization across healthcare and tech.

Looking at growth through the lens of our largest clients, Q1 like-for-like decline for the top 25 clients was 9.4%, which reflects the impact of specific client losses. This level of performance is not where we want it to be, but with organic growth a lagging metric, this outturn is very much in line with our expectations.

Turning to slide 6, organic growth is our North Star as a management team, and improving this is the primary focus of the Elevate 28 strategic plan we announced at the end of February. Organic growth, however, is a lagging metric, and the focus in the first stage of our plan is on stabilizing the business.

As we discussed in February, the key leading indicator of success is net new business, both new client wins and, critically, client retentions. Alongside this, we are also focused on leveraging strategic partnerships, implementing our operating model changes, and delivering the associated cost savings, as well as progress on asset disposals to provide a greater degree of financial flexibility.

On this front, we are encouraged with progress in the first quarter, and our plans are on track. On new business, Q1 was the second consecutive quarter where WPP was ranked number one in net new business by JPMorgan.

We also expect to be ranked number one by Convergence, which more narrowly focuses on media. Key wins during the quarter include Estée Lauder, SC Johnson, JLR, and Norwegian Cruise Line.

Post the quarter close, we were appointed as Wendy's media buying agency in the US, and we won Natura in Brazil. Just as important as client acquisition is client retention, and we were delighted to be reappointed by Tesco in the UK and across Central Europe, and to retain mandates for Huawei in China and Red Bull in India.

On partnerships, we announced expanded partnership with Adobe in February. This brings together Adobe's industry-leading AI capabilities, content platforms, and data orchestration with WPP's deep strategic insights, creative prowess, and end-to-end transformation expertise.

We are very excited about the potential from this partnership, and it is a great example of how we are expanding our go-to-market sales channel for enterprise solutions. We also continue to expand our data partnerships in order to build the value of the open intelligence ecosystem, including Trainline in the UK and Salling Group in Denmark.

On the people front, we have continued to fill critical roles in our operational leadership, including Nancy Hall as CEO of WPP Media in the US, Angela Steel as US Chief Client Officer for WPP Media, and Andrea Suarez as CEO of WPP Media in LatAm. At the group level, Mark Taylor has joined as Chief People Officer, and Anne-Isabelle Chouéri as our first Chief Transformation Officer, both of whom will play a critical role in supporting execution of our Elevate 28 plan.

Now, there remains much to do, and we are laser-focused on the disciplined execution of the strategic initiatives which underpin the stabilization phase of our Elevate 28 plan. The early actions we have taken to build a simpler, more integrated WPP, powered by WPP Open, are resonating strongly with clients, giving us the confidence that we are on the right path to return to growth and deliver longer-term sustained returns for our shareholders.

Turning to our balance sheet, and you can see the detail of where net debt stands as of the 31st of March on slide 7. In short, average adjusted net debt at £3.3 billion continues to come down, both year to date and year on year, albeit assisted by a relatively small beneficial impact from IFRS 9 amendments, which were effective from the beginning of 2026.

I'm also pleased with the successful issuance of a $600 million 10-year bond in March, marking our return to the US credit market after more than a decade. This takes our weighted average maturity to almost 6 years and covers all of our debt maturities through to mid-2028.

As encouraged as I am by this, I want to reemphasize that creating firm financial foundations is a core tenant of the Elevate 28 plan, and at the heart of this is a commitment to maintaining an investment-grade balance sheet. As we indicated in February, we have initiated processes to assess the potential sale of certain portfolio assets.

Those processes are advancing as planned, and while we do not have any additional comments to make on them today, we will update in due course as appropriate. Looking forward, and on slide 8, while we are encouraged by the first quarter performance, which was in line with our expectations, we still see ongoing volatility in client spending and note uncertainty in the Middle East.

Coupled with the phasing of net new business, we continue to expect like-for-like revenue less pass-through costs to decline in the mid- to high single digits in the first half of 2026, consistent with the performance in the first quarter, before seeing an improving trajectory in the second half. On profit, we anticipate headline operating profit margin for the full year to be in the range 12% to 13% and expect H1 margins to be down, reflecting the impact of net sales performance and investment in our growth drivers.

As shared previously, the in-year cost savings benefit from our operating model changes will be skewed to the second half. We also expect to rebuild our incentives, which are also skewed to the second half.

Turning to cash flow, we continue to expect adjusted operating cash flow pre-working capital in the range of £800 million to £900 million. As a reminder, this includes the anticipated restructuring costs associated with the Elevate 28 program and historical restructuring programs.

Excluding these, we would anticipate adjusted operating cash flow before working capital of £1 billion to £1.1 billion. The final thing I want to mention before we open up to questions is the evolution of our reporting, both by segment and by geography, on slide 9.

As shared in February, we are aiming to align our segmental reporting disclosures from half year 2026 with our new operating model, moving from three reporting segments to one: Global Integrated Agencies. This corresponds to the vision and plans to make WPP a single, unified operating company.

In 2026, we will provide additional disclosure on operating performance within the key units: WPP Media, WPP Production, and WPP Creative. This will include like-for-like growth and net sales splits, but will not include profitability metrics, consistent with our peers.

We will also shift our geographical reporting to four recalibrated regions: North America, Latin America, EMEA, and Asia-Pacific. We anticipate moving to this new reporting at the half year.

From 2027, it is our intent to also provide like-for-like growth and the net sales split for WPP Enterprise Solutions. That wraps up my prepared remarks.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our people for their hard work and their unwavering commitment in the year to date. I would now be delighted to take your questions, I'll hand back to the operator.

Yes. Good morning, everyone.

I've got three questions, please. What was the net new business effect in Q1 '26?

How do you split it between gross losses and gross win? Based on the recent account moves, what is the net new business effect you expect for the full year?

Second question on China: so the trend remains quite soft despite heavy decline in the past 2 years. What initiative have you put in place recently, and when do you think the business could stabilize?

Finally, on the H1 margin: so you said you expect it to be down, but do you expect the decline to be in the full-year guidance range, flat to -100 basis points, or it could be worse than 100 basis points and then improving in H2? Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks very much, Nicolas.

Let me just start with the net new business impact in Q1 '26. Look, it was broadly similar to Q4 2025.

As I talked about in February, we are expecting gross account losses to have an impact of 500 to 600 basis points in the full year. The gross wins offsetting that, we did say at the end of February that we were already ahead of that level for 2025, and of course, that has improved through Q1 as we continue to build on the momentum on new business that I talked about in my prepared remarks.

Yes, similar, very, very similar to Q1. I also expect that as we go through the year, that drag from net new business will ease, and we have talked about the improving trajectory into the second half.

I would expect Q1 to be the worst quarter for net new business. In terms of the full year, look, it's too early to put a number on net new business impact.

I've shared what we are seeing for gross losses and also where we are at this point in the year on gross wins. The pipeline is healthy.

We talked last year about, particularly in media, there being a lower volume of pipeline activity. We've been encouraged by the level of activity that we've seen in the last few months and also our improving win rate.

I think we'll update on that as we go through the course of the year in terms of that net new business impact, but hopefully that gives you some color. In terms of China, yeah, China was down just over 12% in Q1.

I'd say a couple of things on China. We are seeing a stabilization in our media business in China.

We've done an awful lot of work in the last couple of years around our proposition and our go-to-market, and we're starting to see the benefits from that. I referenced the retention of Huawei in China, who's become an important client for us in that market.

I would also say that we're starting to lapse through some of those client losses that impacted us last year. Some will continue into the balance of year, but I would assume that we will see an improving trajectory in China as we go through the balance of 2026.

Thirdly, we've talked about the mix of clients in China. Historically, our portfolio was more skewed to global clients.

That's rebalancing towards local clients, and we have improved our proposition to make sure it's competitive and relevant for that market, including introducing WPP Open to that market. We operate now a market model in China, so that's a much more integrated proposition.

As I said, I would expect to see an improving performance as we go through the year for China. In terms of your last question, margin, yes, in H1.

I would expect margin to be in line with the expectations for the full year in terms of the year-on-year decline. Just a couple of things on margin.

In the first half, obviously, we'll have the negative impact from operating leverage. As we've said, we expect to see the top-line trajectory improving in the second half versus the first half.

Our investment through the year is fairly balanced between H1 and H2, and the cost-saving initiatives from Elevate 28 are very much skewed to the second half. As I also shared in my remarks, we will be looking to rebuild our incentives in the full year, and that will also be skewed to the second half.

That'll give you an indication of some of the drivers between H1 and H2.

Perfect. Thank you very much, Joanne.

Good morning. Thank you for the call.

My first question is on the Middle East. I have a couple actually for the Middle East.

Is it fair to assume that March was down about 30%? My second one on the Middle East, I think you're now forecasting the same trends for the second quarter as well.

If these trends were to persist for the full year, are there any other geographies that have been performing slightly better that could offset this Middle East weakness, or if we would see continued weak trends there, that could impact actually the full-year guidance? That's the first one.

The second one is you have some defensive pitches coming up in the second quarter. Do you have already an idea of how those have been going, respectively, have there been some that you hadn't planned at the start of the year?

Thank you.

Let me start with the Middle East. Look, as I shared in my prepared remarks, the Middle East is less than 2% of our net sales.

We did see a deteriorating trend as we went through the quarter, but March wasn't as bad as a 30% decline, but March was the worst month in the quarter. In terms of the Q2 trends and if they persist, and in the other geographies to offset that, look, I talked about some markets we are seeing stabilization and getting back to growth, but what I would say is, when we've seen regional conflicts or challenges in the past, what you tend to find is clients do redirect spend across the region.

Of course, it'll really depend on how prolonged the conflict is. As I said, it's very much reflected in our guidance, and the Middle East at 2% is a fairly immaterial share of our overall net sales for WPP overall.

In terms of defensive pitches, how I would comment on that is we're very much focused on new business, but also client retentions, and I talked to some of the important clients that we've retained in the first quarter. We are very encouraged by our new business performance.

There's significant opportunity with our existing clients to continue to grow with them. I think the Q4 and the Q1 net new business momentum that we're seeing really reflects the improvement in our competitive proposition and how we're showing up to pitches.

The pipeline, as I said, is active, it's healthy, it's more skewed to opportunities than it is to defensive pitches. You are right, there are a number of defensive pitches with existing clients, and I won't comment on those.

As I said, encouraged by the momentum that we're seeing and our performance in new business.

Great. Thank you very much.

Hi, Joanne. Two questions from me, please.

The first one is the growth with existing clients. Could you give us an idea of what that number was in Q1 excluding the losses?

Then second question is on your Enterprise Solutions business. Could you give us a sense of the performance of that business versus the media and creative business of WPP?

Is it doing better or worse in Q1? Thank you.

Okay. In terms of our existing clients, if you look at our top 25, we talked about them being down high single digits.

If you stripped out the losses from that top 25, the decline would drop to low single digits. We have talked in the past about the relatively better performance we see across our largest clients.

As I said, I think it was in response to Nicolas' question, the net new business impact in Q1 was very similar to Q4. We're seeing continued similar trends from Q4 across our existing client base.

In terms of Enterprise Solutions, very encouraged by the work that Geoff and the team have been leading on. We shared in February, just 2 months ago, how we were going to scale the capabilities across Enterprise Solutions and really build three go-to-market channels: the first through our existing agencies, the second building a direct go-to-market, and then the third through partners, and a good example of that is Adobe.

In terms of Enterprise Solutions, it's a very different business to creative and media. It's more project-based, but we do have a significant opportunity to cross-sell with our creative clients.

We don't report Enterprise Solutions yet, as I said that is our intention to do that from 2027. Enterprise Solutions, were we to report it, would have done better than creative and media in the first quarter.

I think the most important thing is we're very focused on growing our share of Enterprise Solutions. The market, as we shared in February, is growing at around 7%, and we see lots of white space to do that.

Excited about the opportunity for Enterprise Solutions in the year ahead.

Thank you.

Thanks a million for the presentation. Couple just from me left.

One, it'd be great to get a sense of, in terms of the pitch activity and the wins in Q4 and Q1, I guess, what's changed, what's been the feedback in terms of why you have, I guess, started to turn the tide in terms of those wins? Two, can you just remind us in terms of expecting these client wins to impact numbers going forward, just in terms of those forward-looking indicators and how we should think about that?

Thanks.

Okay. Let me just start with the second one.

In terms of the client wins, I've talked about the gross losses, gross wins, etc. Talked about the fact that we expect that to have the biggest drag in Q1 in terms of all the quarters in 2026.

As we go through the year, we'll start to see the benefit from those new business wins ramp up. It starts to ramp up in Q2, but really we'll see the biggest impact from those in the second half, and that's really reflected in that guidance of an improving trajectory in like-for-like in the second half.

In terms of what's driving the improvement, look, I've talked to a few things, and I'm going to start with the media team and Brian and the team that he's leading. We've been working on improving the competitiveness and the performance of our media business since Brian joined around 18 months ago now, and we have made great progress on the competitiveness of that proposition.

That's really resonating both with our existing clients and also with new business. As I said, the real lead indicator in that is our new business and also our client retentions.

Brian and the team have also been incredibly focused on building a much more effective and a much more agile operating model, and I guess most critically in that is our global media platform, which means that we have one way of delivering our work now across all of our markets. That's really important, and a huge lift has gone into that, and that is performing well for us.

I think the third aspect of what Brian and the team have been doing is really developing a very clear and a very compelling data strategy, and that was supported with the acquisition of InfoSum, which is now fully integrated into Open Intelligence. Again, that's really resonating with clients.

We're using it in our pitches and with existing clients, and we do think that that gives us a differentiated data strategy. Alongside that, we've been upgrading our talent in media.

I talked in my remarks about Nancy, Angela, and Andrea joining the team in North America and Latin America. I think that's a key factor in our performance, because in the last couple of years, a number of the client losses have really been in media.

I would also add that Open Intelligence really operates across our business. That leads me on to the real second driver of our better performance, and that's our integrated capability.

We've been very focused with WPP Open on leveraging that to connect our capabilities. Open Intelligence is not just for our media business, but it serves all parts of our business, creative and production.

We are really showing up much stronger as an integrated proposition for our clients, and that is really resonating. We talked about JLR in February, but I would also call out Wendy's, where we have the creative business and we won the media business earlier this month.

I think the third areas I'd call out is really our go-to-market approach. Dev took on an expanded role in Q4 and has really been busy leading one approach to our go-to-market, a strong central team with solution architects really at the core of that.

We have really leveraged more our ability to lead with media and data, and that is really resonating. You can see that in the Q4 and the Q1 new business performance.

Then finally, just to wrap up, Ciarán, the points on this, we talked in February and I alluded to it today again, our North Star is really organic growth. Elevate 28 is really built around getting our business back to growth, and we're making good progress on that, and pleased with where we are against our plans, albeit it's still early days.

Perfect. Thanks.

Thank you very much, Joanne, for the presentation. I've got a few questions if you don't mind.

Just to come back on your guidance for H1 mid- to high single-digit decline. Are you signaling that you think Q2 will be more or less in line with Q1?

If so, apart from the Middle East, why would that be the case, given the comparatives seem to be getting easier? Secondly, I guess usually agencies tend to grow faster with their top clients.

You just mentioned before that your revenue with top 25 clients would be down low single digits excluding losses. I'm just curious what's driving the reduction there.

Is that a reduction in scope of work? Is that fee pressure or just broader cuts in their marketing budgets?

The third topic is in the last couple of weeks, I think we've seen a bit of a spat between the platforms like The Trade Desk and media agencies. Do you think that reflects a broader encroachment of DSPs onto media agencies and vice versa, or is it just an isolated incident with few or a couple of clients and just one platform?

Thank you.

Thanks for the questions, Adrien. In terms of your first question on Q2 being more or less in line, look, if I come back to Q1 was very much in line with our expectations, and it was consistent with our guidance for H1 to be down mid- to high single digits.

Now, we expect trends to be broadly similar in Q2. You are right, the comps do ease from Q2.

As we shared in February and as I've talked again today, the trend of net new business through the year, that will ease and improve, and really the most of that easing we'll see in the second half. We will still see a similar drag from that new business in the second quarter as we've seen in the first quarter.

We've also talked about the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, and albeit it's a small percentage of net sales, it was a drag in Q1 and it is driving heightened geopolitical uncertainty. Feel very comfortable with the guidance that we have set of the mid- to high single-digit decline in first half and then that improving trajectory into the second half.

In terms of the existing clients down low single digits, look, I think a couple of things in this. We've talked about a polarization of spend, and as I look at spend within our sectors, that polarization remains with some clients investing with us and increasing their spend, and others being a little bit more cautious.

That trend is continuing, particularly in the tech sector and in healthcare. I'd also add that we talked last year about the step-down we saw in Q2 where in some of our creative agencies, we saw a reduction in client spend, and that's a continuation into Q1.

We really did start to see that step-down in Q2, and so that's carrying forward into Q1. I think it's important to also note that in Q1 last year, our top 25 clients were growing at 7%.

It is difficult in our business when you focus on one quarter and try to interpret a longer-term trend from that quarter. The comps do have an impact.

In terms of The Trade Desk and other DSPs, look, I shouldn't comment and I can't really comment on what others are doing. I think what's important for our business is that we work with a number of the DSPs and SSPs.

What's important for us is that we are optimizing our clients' spend. Sometimes that means a particular DSP will work well and we will work with them, and in other cases it won't work so well and we won't work with them.

We leverage those partnerships well. I'd say some of the DSPs, in particular The Trade Desk that you mentioned, operates in the open internet, it tends to be a smaller segment of the overall advertising market.

What's most important for us is effective investment of our clients' media spend and full transparency. That's transparency for our clients and transparency for our partners, and that's really what we aim to do and what I think we do incredibly well.

I appreciate the comments. Thank you, Joanne.

Yes, good morning, Joanne and Tom. Coming back on net new business, you said Q1 was similar to Q4.

Can you remind us what Q4 was? Also, at the time of the full-year results, you said that the gross wins would be 250.

Today they're better than that. What have they reached today?

Is it 300, 350, 400? That's my first question.

Then Publicis said most of their contracts had an element of performance compensation, but that performance-linked net sales was only 10% of total. How much is it for you?

Then coming back on DSP and The Trade Desk, what percentage of your client money goes through DSPs? Thank you.

Okay. Julien, you're going to ask me this question every which way.

Look, what I'd just reiterate, our gross losses 500 to 600 basis points. Last year, the numbers that we shared would infer that our gross wins were around 250 basis points.

We said in February that we were already exceeding 2025 and we've seen an improvement in the balance of year. I don't want to give a number now on gross client wins, because it's still very early on in the year.

As I said, we have a healthy pipeline which we're very much focused on continuing to improve that win rate. As we go through the year and we get closer to the end of the year, we can share a little bit more on that.

I would repeat the comment that I do expect Q1 to be the weakest quarter in terms of our net new business. In terms of performance-related spend, look, in the past we've talked about performance-related spend being about 20% to 25% of our overall net sales.

You tend to see it higher in media than in other parts of our business. I think that's important, because we are used to structuring performance-related pay in a way that works for both our clients and ourselves.

What we are seeing is an evolution a little bit away from purely time and materials to more output-based pricing, more performance-based pricing, and we're seeing that come into pitches and with existing clients more regularly. We're building up the muscle to be able to do that.

As well as performance and output-based fees, we are introducing more tech fees just given the offer that we have around WPP Open, WPP Open Pro is a good example of that. Really the way to think about this is an evolution of our tech fees.

In terms of the percentage of our revenues that go through with DSPs...

Typically, I think that is the open internet, Julien, in the main. There's a long tail, and if you look at Kate Scott-Dawkins this year, next year, what she points out, it's a relatively small proportion of the open market.

Actually, over time, forecasts to get relatively smaller. Frankly, we don't have a specific figure for you.

The only thing I would say is that the role of WPP Media is to work in the best interest of our clients to do whatever it takes to deliver best execution. That's in some cases will involve working with third-party DSPs and will literally make those decisions project by project, client by client.

Once again, all in the best interest of the customer.

If I could follow up, I understand you don't want to give us gross wins going forward because it's early days, but if you could come back and tell us what was the net impact in Q4? That's the past.

When you say 20% to 30% of net sales linked to performance, do you mean that 20% to 30% of your contracts have an element of performance, or it is actually of net sales, i.e., performance is already 20% to 30% of net sales, i.e., two to

three times Publicis? I said 20% to 25%, just to clarify, and it's net sales.

Julien, I don't really want to get into giving quarter-by-quarter impacts on net new business, because when I come back in August, then you're going to ask me what Q1 was and Q2 was. I think we've shared enough information that you can probably get a good approximation of it.

Fair enough. Thank you.

Thank you very much for all of your questions. Before we end the call, I would like to give you a small sense of what's next.

As discussed in February, we're going to be hosting a series of webinars to double click on our key operating units, and we'll start with WPP Media, and we will be in touch in due course with some further details on that. Thereafter, we anticipate reporting our H1 results in early August, and at that point, Cindy will give a further update on our strategic progress.

I just like to echo my comments from earlier. We remain relentlessly focused on execution of our Elevate 28 plan.

While our like-for-like revenue recovery will of course take time, we are encouraged by the progress to date against our Elevate 28 plans, and we very much look forward to sharing more in due course. In the meantime, I want to say thank you again for your interest and your engagement.

As ever, the investor relations team and myself are available if there's anything further we can do. For now, thank you very much and have a great remainder of your day.