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WPP

WPP quits London office, buys US design firm

Advertising giant WPP is moving out of its central London headquarters after 30 years, signalling another move away from founder and CEO Martin Sorrell, who left the company back in April.

Usually for a FTSE100 company, the current HQ is a smaller mews building in Mayfair that houses legal and finance staff. The new dig will be at the ultra modern Sea Containers development on the South Bank of the Thames, which is already home to a WPP subsidiary.

It’s thought the move will temporary while the firm searches for a larger location to house all of its UK staff under one roof.

Meanwhile, WPP’s global communications agency Burson Cohn & Wolfe has acquired Maryland-based creative agency HZ for an undisclosed sum.

HZ offers a wide range of services, which include multichannel digital design and development, mobile activation, social media, brand and identity creation, content, film and video production, search marketing, data and analytics.

BCW said that the acquisition will expand its expertise in integrated communications across all industry sectors.

WPP cuts sales and profit margin forecasts

Advertising behemoth WPP has cut its sales and profit margin forecasts as it continues to battle with “low growth” advertising markets.

The company has confirmed that like-for-like sales growth and operating margins will now fall in 2017, instead of the initial prediction of 1%, and 0.3% the firm predicted in August.

WPP’s chief executive, Sir Martin Sorrell, told the BBC: “Brexit in a way has actually stimulated our business. Clients, instead of investing in fixed capital are investing in variable costs [such as advertising] in an effort to stimulate growth,” before adding that the world was in a “new normal of low growth, low inflation and limited pricing power”.

Shares in WPP fell by 1% as news reached the City.

Morrell added that three major events could help with growth in 2018.

“Any further marketing investment reduction may well be countered by the mini-quadrennial events of 2018 – the Winter Olympics in South Korea; the FIFA World Cup in Russia; and the mid-term Congressional elections in the United States.”