Publicis Hit by Stagnant China Ads as Europe Crisis Spreads

Publicis Groupe SA Chief Executive Officer Maurice Levy said advertisers in China, a market that has helped the French marketing company make up for slower growth in Europe, aren’t increasing budgets from last year.

Publicis has made more than a dozen acquisitions this year in markets such as China, India and the Middle East as high unemployment and austerity programs by European governments crimp spending by consumers and companies at home. The economic slowdown in China, where Publicis’s first-quarter sales excluding purchases grew by 15 percent, is now one of his top concerns as the European crisis is spreading to the industry’s more stalwart growth regions, Levy said.