Latest news with #WPPplc
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
WPP plc (WPP) Fell due to Results Falling Short of Expectations
Oakmark Funds, advised by Harris Associates, released its 'Oakmark International Fund' first quarter 2025 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. For the quarter ended March 31, 2025, the fund's Investor Share Class returned 7.88% compared to the MSCI World ex USA Index's 6.20% return. Since its inception, the fund returned 8.37% compared to a 6.07% return for the index. Financials and health care sector contributed to the fund's performance in the quarter, while communication services and information technology detracted. In addition, you can check the fund's top 5 holdings to determine its best picks for 2025. In its first-quarter 2025 investor letter, Oakmark International Fund highlighted stocks such as WPP plc (NYSE:WPP). WPP plc (NYSE:WPP) is a creative transformation company. The one-month return of WPP plc (NYSE:WPP) was -12.05%, and its shares lost 25.77% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On April 16, 2025, WPP plc (NYSE:WPP) stock closed at $35.46 per share with a market capitalization of $7.873 billion. Oakmark International Fund stated the following regarding WPP plc (NYSE:WPP) in its Q1 2025 investor letter: "WPP plc (NYSE:WPP) was the top detractor during the quarter. The U.K.-headquartered advertising company's stock price declined after it delivered weaker than expected fourth-quarter 2024 results and 2025 guidance. The results were impacted by client losses, disruptions from restructuring activity, and pullback in more discretionary client spending. Despite the headwinds, margins and free cash flow (FCF) remained resilient. While the economic environment remains uncertain, management believes WPP's growth should start to recover in the back half of 2025, and their FCF generation should rebound as restructuring activities fade. While the past year has been a tough one for WPP, we continue to believe expected fourth-quarter 2024 results and 2025 guidance. The results were impacted by client losses, disruptions from restructuring activity, and pullback in more discretionary client spending. Despite the headwinds, margins and free cash flow (FCF) remained resilient. While the economic environment remains uncertain, management believes WPP's growth should start to recover in the back half of 2025, and their FCF generation should rebound as restructuring activities fade. While the past year has been a tough one for WPP, we continue to believe the business can deliver low single-digit growth and much improved FCF. WPP can also monetize equity assets like Kantar for material amounts. We continue to think the discounted valuation overly discounts the company's fundamental value." A media buying executive looking out a window at a brand advertiser's billboard. WPP plc (NYSE:WPP) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 5 hedge fund portfolios held WPP plc (NYSE:WPP) at the end of the fourth quarter which was 4 in the previous quarter. While we acknowledge the potential of WPP plc (NYSE:WPP) as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is as promising as NVIDIA but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock. We covered WPP plc (NYSE:WPP) in another article, where we shared the list of best advertising stocks to buy according to hedge funds. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q1 2025 page for more investor letters from hedge funds and other leading investors. READ NEXT: Michael Burry Is Selling These Stocks and A New Dawn Is Coming to US Stocks. Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
Yahoo
16-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Investors in WPP (LON:WPP) have unfortunately lost 25% over the last three years
In order to justify the effort of selecting individual stocks, it's worth striving to beat the returns from a market index fund. But the risk of stock picking is that you will likely buy under-performing companies. Unfortunately, that's been the case for longer term WPP plc (LON:WPP) shareholders, since the share price is down 35% in the last three years, falling well short of the market return of around 20%. With that in mind, it's worth seeing if the company's underlying fundamentals have been the driver of long term performance, or if there are some discrepancies. See our latest analysis for WPP While markets are a powerful pricing mechanism, share prices reflect investor sentiment, not just underlying business performance. One imperfect but simple way to consider how the market perception of a company has shifted is to compare the change in the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price movement. WPP saw its EPS decline at a compound rate of 22% per year, over the last three years. In comparison the 13% compound annual share price decline isn't as bad as the EPS drop-off. This suggests that the market retains some optimism around long term earnings stability, despite past EPS declines. You can see how EPS has changed over time in the image below (click on the chart to see the exact values). This free interactive report on WPP's earnings, revenue and cash flow is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further. As well as measuring the share price return, investors should also consider the total shareholder return (TSR). Whereas the share price return only reflects the change in the share price, the TSR includes the value of dividends (assuming they were reinvested) and the benefit of any discounted capital raising or spin-off. So for companies that pay a generous dividend, the TSR is often a lot higher than the share price return. We note that for WPP the TSR over the last 3 years was -25%, which is better than the share price return mentioned above. The dividends paid by the company have thusly boosted the total shareholder return. WPP shareholders are up 3.9% for the year (even including dividends). But that was short of the market average. But at least that's still a gain! Over five years the TSR has been a reduction of 0.8% per year, over five years. It could well be that the business is stabilizing. While it is well worth considering the different impacts that market conditions can have on the share price, there are other factors that are even more important. Even so, be aware that WPP is showing 3 warning signs in our investment analysis , and 1 of those can't be ignored... If you are like me, then you will not want to miss this free list of undervalued small caps that insiders are buying. Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on British exchanges. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.
