On Thursday, Publicis expressed its confidence for the 2024 financial year, after recording another 'record' year on all its indicators in 2023.

The advertising and communications group has set itself the target of outperforming the market this year, despite the current macroeconomic uncertainties.

It is forecasting organic growth of between 4% and 5%, an operating margin of 18%, and free cash flow of between 1.8 and 1.9 billion euros.

Over the past financial year, the company claims to have generated organic growth of 6.3%, thanks to a year-end that "exceeded expectations", marked by organic growth of 5.7% in the fourth quarter.

"In a particularly difficult macro-economic context, and after six years of transformation, Publicis has clearly stood out in 2023", enthused Arthur Sadoun, Chairman of the Management Board.

The CEO emphasized that the company had significantly outperformed the other communications groups, growing twice as fast as the leading digital consultancies.

The margin rate was thus 18% for the year, stable compared with 2022, for adjusted free cash flow of 1.7 billion euros.

Net income, group share, comes to 1.31 billion euros in 2023, up 7.4% on the 1.22 billion in 2022.

In a reaction note, analysts at Oddo BHF refer to "2023 results 'in line' and 'very encouraging' growth forecasts for 2024".

The Group plans to pay a total cash dividend of almost 900 million euros, or 3.40 euros per share, as well as a share buyback program estimated at around 200 million euros.

A budget of between 700 and 800 million euros will also be allocated to its "targeted" acquisitions policy.

Following these announcements, the share price suffered some limited profit-taking on Thursday morning (-0.9%) on the Paris Bourse, after having soared by almost 34% since last November.

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