WPP Tumbles After New CEO Outlines Painful Turnaround Effort
- Ad group cuts sales and profit margin outlook for the year
- Shares slump most in almost two decades in London trading
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WPP Plc Chief Executive Officer Mark Read is off to a disappointing start for investors with a cut to the ad giant’s outlook, triggering the company’s biggest share slump in almost two decades.
The owner of Ogilvy, Grey and J. Walter Thompson now expects sales to fall this year and its profit margin to decline as it revealed a third-quarter earnings miss, continuing a string of bad news that’s hammered the stock. The shares dropped as much as 23 percent intraday to a six-year low, wiping out 3 billion pounds ($3.9 billion) of market value.