A disappointing growth in its organic sales was reported by Publicis as it was only 1.0 percent in the third quarter, its main culprit, according to the company was focusing on “other plans”, this in reference to the Omnicom, based in the United States and the merger it failed to achieve.
Chairman and Chief Executive Maurice Levy stated that the result of the third quarter did not live up to the expectation of the company nor that of the market, he, however, went further to say that Publicis was confident of the future and that this was the end of the cycle.
In addition to what his statement he commented further that the management of Publicis did not pay much attention to growth and the company’s performance in the short term rather its focus revolved around other plans.
The merger with Omnicom met a complete breakdown and fell apart as delays to antitrust and tax approvals made deeper gouges to an already gaping conflict between the leadership. The $35 billion move would have meant that the combined companies would have overtaken WPP as the biggest advertising company in the world.