Publicis Groupe’s stock price has broken the €100 barrier for the first time as investors continue to back the French agency group after it outperformed rivals during the recent annual earnings season.
The stock rose by more than 1% to hit an intra-day high of €100.35 last Wednesday (27 March), before closing at €99.90. On Thursday, the day of trading before the Easter holiday long weekend, it closed above €101.
The company has passed another milestone as its valuation leapt above €25 billion and closed at €25.4 billion (£21.7 billion), cementing Publicis' status as the world’s most valuable agency group.
In dollar terms, Publicis was valued at $27.5 billion, ahead of Omnicom at $19 billion, Interpublic at $12.5 billion and WPP at $10 billion.
Publicis Groupe has grown faster than its rivals since the pandemic, posting organic growth of 6.3% and a market-leading profit margin of 18% in 2023. By contrast, IPG, WPP and Dentsu all cut their forecasts during 2023.
Publicis Groupe raised the pressure further when it forecast growth of up to 5% in 2024.
The French group’s share price has risen 18% since the start of 2024 and 68% since the start of 2023.
The stock has more than quadrupled in value since its nadir at the start of the pandemic, helping it to overtake Omnicom and WPP to become the world’s most valuable agency group for the first time in 2021.
Senior management and other employees who are entitled to shares as part of their remuneration will benefit from the jump in the stock price.
Publicis Groupe does not disclose how many of its 102,000 employees own stock or receive share awards.
However, the company operates more than 20 different share award plans across the group, including dedicated schemes for staff of Sapient and Epsilon and for the Directoire, the top management tier, according to the most recent annual report.
Staff were in line for up to 4.3 million “free” shares that were “yet to vest” as of Dec. 31, 2022, the report showed.
Publicis has been especially keen to incentivise Arthur Sadoun, the chairman and chief executive, who has been in the job since 2017. Shareholders approved an unusual “retention contract” last year that will pay Sadoun a one-off share award worth 10 times his annual salary if he remains as chief executive until 2027.
WPP, which used to be the world’s most valuable agency group, is still larger than Publicis Groupe in revenue terms.
Tech giants such as Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft have far larger valuations, ranging between $1 trillion and $3 trillion each.
