The world’s largest advertising group WPP reported a 34 per cent rise in net profits for 2010  as a strong recovery in emerging markets and the US helped boost revenues, the company said on Friday. Reuters reports that WPP, whose ad agencies include JWT and Ogilvy & Mather, posted fourth quarter organic revenue growth of 8.5 per cent, saying the solid performance had continued into January with revenue up over 8 per cent.  For 2011 the company said it expects like-for-like growth, which strips out the impact of acquisitions and currency moves, of 5 per cent and operating margins to rise 0.5 margin points to 13.7 per cent. According to the WSJ, WPP will lift the dividend pay-out ratio to around 40 per cent from 30 per cent over the medium term after paying a record dividend for 2010. Its interim dividend was raised by 15 per cent to 11.82 pence a share, bringing the total dividend for the year to 17.79 pence a share.

This entry was posted by Izabella Kaminska on Friday, March 4th, 2011 at 9:45 and is featured in The Lunch Wrap (4 Mar 2011) . Tagged with advertising, results, WPP. Edit this entry.