Good morning everyone, and thank you for joining the WPP Q3 2026 Trading Update Call. My name is Melanie and I will be coordinating your call today. During the presentation, you can register a question by pressing star followed by one, then another one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again on your telephone keypad. For those on the webcast, you can also ask questions via the dedicated Q&A box. I will now hand over to Thomas Singlehurst to begin. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Melanie. Good morning and thank you for joining us for WPP's third quarter trading update. I'm Tom Singlehurst, WPP's Group Director of Investor Relations, and joining me today are Cindy Rose, our CEO, and Joanne Wilson, our CFO. I hope you've had the opportunity to read this morning's press release together with the accompanying presentation and disclosures. As always, I would ask you to read the cautionary statement, which is on page two of the slide deck, very carefully. Before Joanne takes you through the numbers in detail, I'll hand over to Cindy for some opening comments.
Brilliant. Thank you, Tom. Good morning everyone. I wanted to offer a brief perspective on our progress before Joanne takes you through the detail. We are less than a year into our three-year Elevate28 plan to return WPP to consistent and sustainable growth. We continue to make progress, and I'm encouraged by the improved momentum in the third quarter. We are reiterating our full year guidance, and we remain laser focused on disciplined execution of the Elevate28 plan. Our Q3 revenue was up 0.5%, both reported and on a like-for-like basis, while net sales declined by 2.1% like-for-like, reflecting further quarterly sequential improvement. This was driven by a return to growth of WPP Media for the first time since 2024, led by our U.S. media operation, which is strategically significant and really wonderful to see. WPP Production also saw 2.5% growth in the quarter.
WPP Media began its transformation a year before we launched Elevate28, with WPP Production following close behind. We're now realizing the benefits of those changes, which gives me confidence that the rest of the business will follow a similar trajectory. That momentum moves us firmly towards the build phase of Elevate28 and strengthens our foundations for a return to growth sometime during 2027. Our singular focus on execution excellence is resulting in improved new business performance and client retention, contributing to the sequential improvement in growth that we're delivering in the second half. At the same time, we are operating more efficiently and creating greater capacity to invest in our outstanding talent and the capabilities that will drive our future growth. The third quarter gave us a lot to be encouraged about.
We secured new client assignments and significant client retentions, including successfully winning a competitive pitch to renew our longstanding partnership with the Coca-Cola Company for global media, data, tech and creator marketing in every market we competed for, as well as continuing to serve as the company's global creative partner. We also expanded our global media partnership with DoorDash, building on an eight-year relationship that now encompasses more than 40 markets worldwide. We were appointed as the media partner across North America and EMEA for Alphabet's Waymo, leading strategy planning and buying, including for the driverless car brand's Super Bowl debut. In Greater China, we're bringing together talent, technology and AI through WPP Open | China to deliver Nestlé's first fully integrated content model. Other notable client wins included a partnership between AKQA and TurboTax, engaging the next generation of taxpayers through digital content.
Godrej Consumer Products Limited consolidated its international media operations with WPP Media across Indonesia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Nigeria, Argentina and Chile under a single connected model. WPP was also named the integrated agency partner for the Electoral Commission in the U.K., leading voter communications across Great Britain. These wins reflect the creativity, the deep expertise and determination of our teams, and the trust and confidence that our clients have in WPP's ability to drive brand differentiation and business growth at a global scale. We're also investing in the future with confidence. Last month we opened Devon's Point, our new state-of-the-art AI-powered global flagship production facility in East London.
Devon's Point was built from the ground up to support the modern demands of global brand marketing and offers our clients large scale virtual production sets, dedicated creator facilities such as live streaming studios, rapid shoot and edit facilities, collaboration spaces, and multiple AI-enabled post-production technology suites. We also continue to strengthen our partner ecosystem, welcoming almost 50 additional data partners to WPP Open Intelligence, including, for example, IOTA, whose audience data and technology bring deeper insights, more precise consumer targeting, and enhanced omnichannel performance. This takes the total number of data partners to around 400, further strengthening the open differentiated ecosystem that is central to our long-term data strategy and a source of competitive advantage for our clients. We also expanded our strategic partnership with Kyndryl to accelerate enterprise AI transformation and bring new innovations to our shared clients.
As part of this partnership, WPP was named Kyndryl's global media and marketing partner, delivering a broad portfolio of integrated services powered by WPP Open, our agentic marketing platform. On the people front, we announced a few leadership changes last month. Joanne Wilson will step down as CFO in 2027, and I want to take this opportunity to recognize her contribution to WPP over the years. Joanne's leadership has helped position us for success as we deliver on the first phase of Elevate28. The process to identify a new CFO is well underway, and I know that Joanne is committed to a smooth and orderly transition once her successor is identified and on board. We also celebrate Jon Cook's remarkable 30 years at VML before he leaves us next year.
Looking ahead, I'm excited to welcome Tyler Turnbull from McCann as Global CEO of WPP Creative, while Eric Campbell, currently CEO of VML North America, will become Global CEO of VML. To help us further deepen our trusted client partnerships across our largest WPP clients, Adam Gerhart has been promoted to Chief Client Officer. I'm excited about the leadership team we're building. This caliber of talent brings the energy, experience, and leadership needed to help us accelerate the next phase of our strategy. Alongside these investments, we continue to strengthen our financial foundations. We're on track to deliver the targeted GBP 100 million in year cost savings, and we continue to make progress on asset disposals and expect to generate more than GBP 200 million of proceeds this year. Together, these actions are creating a stronger platform for sustainable growth.
Look, transformation at this scale isn't easy, and the benefits do not materialize overnight. It takes time, and progress may not always be linear, but I am incredibly proud of what our teams are delivering. They are performing and transforming with energy, enthusiasm, and commitment, and that fills me with confidence that we will continue to see progress reflected in the lead indicators that we set out back in February. As I said earlier, we're less than a year into our three-year Elevate28 plan to return WPP to sustainable, consistent growth. We still have a lot of work ahead of us, but we continue to make progress, and I'm encouraged by the commercial momentum we're delivering. We are reiterating full-year guidance, and we remain laser-focused on disciplined execution of the Elevate28 plan.
We'll share a fuller update on our strategic progress when we report our preliminary results in February. With that, let me now hand over to Joanne to take you through the details of our third quarter performance. Joanne?
Thank you, Cindy, and good morning, everyone. Let me share some detail on our third quarter financial performance, and then, of course, we will open the call up for your questions. I'm starting with our operating performance in the third quarter on slide eight. Like-for-like revenue, less pass-through costs, fell 2.1% in the third quarter, while organic revenue growth, a metric which may ease comparability across our peer set, was up 0.5%. Both figures represent further sequential improvement from the second quarter and were in line with our expectations. The impact from both M&A and FX was negligible, with reported net revenue moving more in line with organic trends down 2%. You will see further detail on performance by business unit, region, and client sector on slide nine of the presentation, but I would call out the following features of performance in the third quarter.
By business unit, WPP Media saw a return to growth of 0.3% in the third quarter. This compares to a decline of 8.3% in the first quarter and a decline of 2.8% in the second quarter. While we note the impact of easing comparables and some timing benefits, we are encouraged by this performance, especially as it continues to include a significant impact from growth and client losses. We are seeing an improving contribution from new business wins. However, the net impact of new business for WPP Media remains a drag on our like-for-like performance. Looking at the non-media businesses, WPP Creative was down 5.1%, a deteriorating rate of decline versus the second quarter, which was down at 3.5%. This was primarily driven by lower client spending, partially offset by the ramp-up of new business.
Within this, brand and design continues to post good growth, while PR also returned to growth in the quarter despite pressures in the Middle East. WPP Production delivered another quarter of positive growth with like-for-like of 2.5%, a sequential quarter-on-quarter acceleration on the 1.3% growth in the second quarter. By geography, the shape of performance is still distorted by the impact of gross account losses, which weigh most heavily on North America and in the U.K. Encouragingly, both of these markets were still in negative territory, down 1.8% and 0.2% respectively, are tracking much better quarter on quarter. At the same time, we are encouraged to see both Germany and India return to growth. By contrast, China was down high single digits in Q3. However, the year-to-date trend represents a stabilization relative to the last couple of years.
Given ongoing geopolitical uncertainty, I want to mention performance in the Middle East, which represents just under 2% of our business. This region was down around 13% in the quarter, a deterioration on the second quarter and continues to be a source of uncertainty into the fourth quarter. By client sector, as discussed at both the first half and in the first quarter, trends in areas like CPG and tech continue to be impacted by client assignment losses, albeit Q3 has seen an improving quarter-on-quarter performance in both of these client sectors. Excluding this, we continue to see a high degree of polarization between and within sectors. We note, however, that in the third quarter we have seen continuing growth within both healthcare and auto.
Turning to growth through the lens of our largest clients, the Q3 like-for-like decline to the top 25 clients was 2.7%, which I've mentioned includes the impact of specific client losses. Excluding this Q3 performance for that group was positive. Turning to our balance sheet, you can see the detail of where net debt stands at 30th of September on slide 10. Average adjusted net debt of GBP 3.2 billion continues to come down both year to date and year-on-year, albeit somewhat assisted by the beneficial impact from IFRS 9 amendments, which were effective from 2026. Since our interim results, we repaid the EUR 750 million bond, which matured in September, and this takes our weighted average maturity back about six years. Also note that given successful issuances in December last year and March this year, all of our debt maturities are covered through to 2028.
I would like to reemphasize that creating firm financial foundations is a core tenet of the Elevate28 plan, and at the root of this is a commitment to maintaining an investment-grade balance sheet. To this end, as we indicated in February, we have initiated processes to assess the potential sale of certain portfolio assets and continue to expect proceeds from disposal-related activity of at least GBP 200 million in 2026. Those processes continue to advance as planned, and while we do not have any additional comments to make on them today, we will update in due course as appropriate. Finally, turning to guidance on slide 11. Taking a balanced view of the outlook, we reiterate our guidance for like-for-like revenue, less pass-through costs down low to mid-single digits in the second half, with Q4 like-for-like expected to be towards the better end of this range.
Looking to 2027, we will not set formal guidance until the prelims in February. That said, consistent with the guidance we gave at the launch of the Elevate28 strategy earlier this year, we do continue to expect a return to growth during the course of the year. Turning to headline operating profit margin, again, we are reiterating our guidance for a full-year margin of 12%-13%, which is consistent with second half margins decreasing by up to 200 basis points year-on-year. We are on track to deliver GBP 100 million of in-year structural cost savings as part of our Elevate28 strategy. As intended, we are reinvesting these savings into growth drivers, including the rebuilding of incentive pools. Looking beyond the net sales and margin guidance, we continue to expect to deliver adjusted operating cash flow before working capital in the GBP 800 million to GBP 900 million range.
As a reminder, this excludes the anticipated restructuring costs associated with the Elevate28 program and historical restructuring programs. Excluding these, we would anticipate adjusted operating cash flow before working capital of between GBP 1 billion and GBP 1.1 billion. As mentioned, we expect the overall impact of disposal-related activity, some of which will come via direct disposal proceeds and some via associate dividends, to contribute at least GBP 200 million to our cash flow in the full year. We continue to expect the improvement in average adjusted net debt to be sustained across the balance of the year. That wraps up the formal part of our presentation, and both Cindy Rose and I will now be delighted to take your questions.
Thank you, Joanne Wilson. We will now begin the Q&A session. In terms of housekeeping, if you could please state your name and your organization before you ask your questions, that would be very much appreciated. Please note, for those joining via the webcast, there is an opportunity to type in questions. We will aggregate these, and I will run through them at the end of the Q&A session. With that, Melanie, can you open the line for questions, please?
Thank you. To ask a question during the session, please press star one and one and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. For those on the webcast, you can also ask questions via the dedicated Q&A box. Our first question comes from the line of Ciarán Donnelly from Citi. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yeah, thanks a million, guys. It's Ciarán from Citi. A few questions from myself. One maybe for Cindy Rose, just in terms of client conversations you've been having recently. What's the kind of outlook into 2027? What's the tone of those conversations? I guess just in terms of maybe quantification in terms of net new business for 2027. I know you guys don't give a number for the contribution, but just directionally, where are we now versus perhaps where we were at H1? Two, just in terms of the reiteration of the margin guidance, can you just talk us through the dynamics within that range? What are the puts and takes, and how should we think about that? Finally, just in terms of a couple of quantifications, you called out the top 25 performance, excluding losses, was positive. Could you give us a number for that?
Also, just in terms of the timing benefits you called out in WPP Media, if you could just give us a sense of the size of that benefit in Q3. Thanks.
Thanks, Ciarán. Why don't I kick off with client conversations and tone, and then I'll hand to Joanne Wilson on numbers. What I will say, Ciarán, is I'm genuinely more excited about the opportunity I see today than I was even a year ago. I think transformation of the scale that we're undertaking here clearly takes time to flow through to the numbers, and no one is more impatient than I am to see that happen. But I spend time with clients every single day, and what I can tell you
Is that they are responding very positively to the changes that we are making. Why? Because we are showing up as one unified company, and we are able to present the best of WPP, not hundreds of different agencies. So we can offer our clients the right talent to the right client at the right time without historical agency constraints. Now that the vast majority of our pitches are integrated, the old WPP just wasn't set up to keep pace with the evolving needs of clients in that way, and now we are. I think our new business wins and client retentions continue to be an important lead indicator of the progress that we are making. We are seeing improving trends on both that demonstrate that we are on the right track, and the tone and conversations I have with clients really validate that.
So Joanne, do you want to pick up on net new business numbers, margin?
Yes, of course.
Top 25? Yeah.
Good morning, Ciarán . Thanks for the question. Let me start with the margin guidance. They are very similar to the messaging in August. We do have a declining top line this year, and obviously that has some impact on operating deleverage. If you look at some of the drivers within the margin, we talked about structural cost savings this year of GBP 100 million, very much on track to deliver those. We also talked about the importance of getting back to sustained growth as part of Elevate28, and that we would invest in areas like media, data, commerce, Enterprise Solutions, where we saw opportunities to do so. We indicated that all of the structural cost savings would be reinvested back into the business this year. Alongside those areas of growth, we are also investing in rebuilding our incentives.
That is really all reflected within the margin guidance of 12%-13%. I would also just point out that this year we have seen a renewed momentum in new business, which is very encouraging. We also have the impact of historic client losses. In our industry, as you are ramping up new business wins, of course, you have all of the costs sometimes even before day one, and it takes time, often three, six, nine months in some cases, to ramp up to the full revenue from those wins. There is a little bit of that dynamic in the year, and that is reflected in the margin as well. In terms of the top 25, it was encouraging to see, excluding the losses, that we are back in growth, and that growth was around low to mid-single digit. As Cindy said, an area of continued focus for us.
In terms of the media performance, very encouraged with the growth in Q3. I think it reflects the work that Brian and the team have been doing over the last number of years. I would not get too focused on quarter-on-quarter performance, and I would look at it H2 versus H1. We said at the start of the year, we expect an improving trajectory. We are very much going to see that within media, which is encouraging. There were some timing benefits, which Q3 benefited from, which supported that performance. We often see that quarter on quarter, which is why I point you to the halves rather than the quarter.
Okay, great. Thanks.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Nicolas Langlet from BNP Paribas. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, everyone. I have three questions, please. First, to come back on the net new business. By how much the net new business improved in Q3 relative to Q2, and what do you expect for Q4? Also, based only on the wins and losses already known, do you expect a positive or negative net new business entering 2027? Second question on media. Can you quantify the timing benefits in Q3 and whether you expect that to fully reverse in Q4? Lastly, on creative, what is driving the lower client spending from existing client in Q3? Are you seeing clients buying fewer services or the same for fewer bill hours? Which fix are you pursuing to improve the trend? Basically, when do you expect the creative to return to positive like-for-like? Thank you.
Okay. Thanks, Nicolas. Why do I take all of those? Just on the net new business, we talked in August and indeed at the start of year that we expect our gross client losses to have an impact of 500-600 basis points, and that we were towards the top end or at the top end of that range, which remains the case. We are very encouraged by the momentum that we have seen in new business wins this year, and of course we are ramping those up as we go through the year. I talked about easing drags on that new business from H1 into H2, and we expect that to continue. In terms of Q3, we did see an easing of the net new business drag versus Q2, and of course that helped with that performance.
In fact, very pleasingly, we saw an acceleration of some of the ramp-up of the new business in Q3. As a result of that, I would expect the net new business impact to be similar across Q3 and Q4. As I said, it is too early to talk about the impact of net new business on 2027, but I think the focus is on new business, it is on client retention, and it is to continue to see an improving trend on the net new business. There were some losses Q2, Q3, that, of course, we will carry into 2027. That is not unusual at all. I would not expect to see anywhere near the level of losses that we were carrying into 2026. In terms of the media timing, look, I just repeat what I said before. Do not focus too much on the quarter.
Look at it on an H2 versus H1. I do expect all of that timing benefit to unwind in Q4. It was important enough to call out, but not material in terms of WPP Media's overall performance in Q3. On creative and the lower client spending, look, again, if you look at the performance in the first half, the performance in Q3 was broadly in line. Was that down mid-single digits? If I uptick creative, I think it is important to call out that we did see Burson get back to growth in the quarter, and we saw continued strong growth across our brand design agencies, including Landor, which is very much encouraging. The lower client spend is, you talk about polarization of spend across and within client sectors, and that is reflected really on that creative number. Now, we are seeing a ramp-up in new business.
I would call out that the creative teams have done a very good job this year on improving their win rate year-on-year, and they are ramping those wins up and will continue to as we go through the balance of the year. I think it is important to call out on Q3 that WPP Creative and the team there have gone through a significant redesign of their operating model this year. And yet again, they have done that brilliantly, as they always do. But nonetheless, the big lift in terms of the changes across the business are really in Q3. And while the team are very much focused on making sure there is minimal client impact from that, which there was, undoubtedly, that is a distraction for the leadership team, away from the top line.
And I would say that that has probably had some small impact on that in Q3 as well.
Okay. Thank you, Joanne.
Our next question comes from the line of Julien Roch from Barclays. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. First of all, good luck, Joanne, in your next adventure. I will come back, sorry, once again, on net new business, probably last attempt. So gross towards the top end of 500- 600 in terms of losses. Gross wins were supposed to be better than last year, 250. So now that we close to the end of the year, can we have some more color on how much better than 250? That is my first question. My second question is on Burson back to growth. Can we have a more precise number? And also how much was it of net sales in Q3 or nine months? Then finally, for Joanne, what is the number one item to address, the number one problem to solve that you are leaving in your successor's in-tray? Just one. Because I am sure there is a long list, but just one.
Okay. I might answer that last question positively, Julien. So on the net new business, look, the gross losses, let us say 600 basis points. As you said, last year gross wins were 250 basis points. I think the team has done a super job this year on the win rate. As a result of that, the gross wins will be significantly better than they were last year, but not enough to offset that gross loss. So I am still expecting in Q4 that the net new business is a drag, albeit an easing drag, versus H1 in the final quarter of the year, but still negative. In terms of Burson's growth, look, I would say that what was the driver of it, that we saw particularly strong performance in the U.S. I am very much encouraged by the turnaround in that business versus where it was last year.
The growth was low to mid-single digits, and PR overall is around 7% of our net sales. Then in terms of what my-
This isn't the scale of Burson as one of the questions.
Yes.
Sorry.
That makes sense. I think it's also important, just in the context of that Burson performance, to call out the Middle East, because the Middle East we've said is 2% of WPP's overall net sales, but for Burson, it's a higher percentage. So in the context of that, and we saw a step down in the Q3 in the Middle East, I think it's important to call out the job that the Burson team are doing, very strong. So look, Julien, I'm not trying to avoid your question, but I think in terms of where the business is at today, I think the entire team at WPP have worked incredibly hard over the last 3.5 years, to simplify the business, to turn around the performance that we saw over the last few years. As part of that simplifying, our corporate functions as well.
I have a brilliant team here, so whoever comes in will be inheriting that. So they're very fortunate. I think it's a much easier job to inherit than perhaps the one I did 3.5 years ago. So, I think there's all to play for. It's a fantastic time to join the business. We're all on track to deliver Elevate28. So, driving continued momentum, I think will be the focus on supporting Cindy and the rest of the executive team do that.
Okay. Thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Adam Berlin from Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good morning, everyone. Just one question left really on costs. You talked about GBP 500 million cost savings from Elevate28, GBP 100 million of that has come in 2026. Can you give us any sense of how much of the remaining GBP 400 million will come through in 2027, just as we're starting to think about 2027 margins?
What areas could that be reinvested, or how much of that could actually drop through to the bottom line next year? Thanks.
Okay. Thanks, Adam. So yes, very much on track to deliver the GBP 500 million of structural cost savings through 2028. We'll deliver GBP 100 million in year, and the annualized impact will be GBP 250 million in 2027, so another GBP 150 million coming through from the actions taken this year. Of course, there will be further actions on the corporate functions next year, which will add to that GBP 150 million. I think it's important to take you back to February, and Cindy and I talked about our priority is to get the business back to sustained growth. We will invest in a disciplined way to do that across growth drivers. So that is media, it's in our data proposition, it's across Enterprise Solutions, it's across commerce. On some sectors where we see big opportunities for us to take share in some cases.
And so look, it is too early to say how much of that will be reinvested in 2027, but we will give more detail in February.
Okay. Thank you very much.
And our next question comes from the line of Adrien de Saint Hilaire from Bank of America. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning, everyone. Just extending my gratitude to Joanne for all your help over the years. My question is actually probably more for Cindy, in fact. But, I know it is super difficult to talk about individual clients, but I would be interested to hear about why WPP did not participate in the U.S. pitch for Coke. Secondly, some of your peers are talking about winning assignments without pitching. Is that also something that you are observing? Then I am very sorry, Joanne, I have got a bit of a boring question. Is there an impact on the interest costs from higher rates? And can you talk about where you see net debt and average net debt ending for the year?
Thanks, Adrien. Appreciate your question. Let me jump in on Coke, first of all. Needless to say, we are delighted with the outcome of that process. It was rigorous and fiercely competitive and we were appointed in every market we competed for, and I could not be prouder of my teams for the fantastic result that they delivered during FIFA World Cup for the Coca-Cola Company, and also how they performed during the pitch process. We did not participate in the North America pitch, that is correct. Mostly because we won the rest of the world, and we have a huge amount of work to do in a very short period of time. I had many people pitching for many weeks over the summer. I was with them myself in London and Shanghai and Mexico City.
We made a tough call between spending yet another six weeks pitching for North America versus delivering against what we had already won. It was a fine judgment call, which I made, and it is as simple as that, really. That is your question on Coke, North America. I hope that answers it. The other question you had was this pitchless CEO handshake thing that I keep getting asked about. What can I say here? Nobody loves pitching. You are not going to find anybody that says, "I love pitching." The cost and burden of the process seems to be increasing. I think what is really important to me is that my clients fully understand the implications of the decisions they are making. These are really high-stakes decisions with material business consequences, and they deserve careful consideration.
I do not think we do ourselves any favor as an industry of professionals by encouraging clients to bypass proper due diligence. I think I will leave it at that. Joanne, do you want to comment on debt?
Yeah. Thank you for your comments, Adrien. Just on interest, we are 90% fixed in terms of our interest, and from a financing perspective, we have refinanced all our bonds out to 2028. I am not expecting a significant impact from potential increase in interest rates going forward. I would expect interest to trend down over the course of 2028. In terms of our average adjusted net debt, it was down about GBP 160 million, at the end of September year on year. That was helped by IFRS 9. The adjusted net debt was actually down GBP 600 million, and I would expect to end the year with the average and actual adjusted net debt down as well.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Anna Patrice from Berenberg. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning. Thank you very much for all the answers already provided. Just a follow-up on my side. First, once again, on Creative and Enterprise Solutions. I understand that Creative has worsened, I understand that some reasons behind, et cetera. But what about the Enterprise Solutions? Because it is within the Creative. Does it mean that it also has slowed down further into Q3? Is it growing? What should we expect for 2027? That is first question. Second question on the quality of the WPP Media return to growth. How much of the 0.3% came from timing and easier comparison, and how much from the wins ramping up? Then do you think that we will see kind of accelerating or at least positive growth of the Media in Q4 and 2027? Then, the last couple of questions, on the new business in the pipeline.
If there are any significant accounts under review, besides IKEA
What could be the drag from the last three major contracts lost in Q3? What will be the drag from new contracts for 2027?
Okay.
That is it. Thank you.
Why do I take this on? I think your first question, the line is not that great, was Enterprise Solutions and its performance relative to Creative. As we said in February, this year was really about establishing Enterprise Solutions as a standalone operating unit, and we intend to report Enterprise Solutions like-for-like from the 1st of January 2027. Jeff and the team have been very focused on standing up Enterprise Solutions as well as building out our go-to market. So expanding our channels to market from just through Creative to having direct go-to market capability in the business and also through partners. We have made really good progress with that this year. We are not sharing the performance of Enterprise Solutions. As I said, we will do that from the 1st of January.
To just give you an indication, it was slightly better than overall Creative. In terms of media, and the quality of the performance, I would say that it is good quality performance. I think they did benefit a little bit from easing comps. I think it was about 1%. I have talked about the timing factors not being material, but significant enough to call out and that they will online through the year. As I said as well, in terms of your question on positive growth in Q4, I do not want to get too fixated on quarter-on-quarter. Very encouraged by the progress that the media team are making despite the losses that they are still lapping, and we are seeing that through a combination of new business wins, but also growth from existing clients, particularly in the U.S. The team are very focused on the balance of year.
Q4 is obviously always our biggest quarter, so an important one. On 2027, we will come back in February and update you on expectations then. In terms of the new business and the pipeline, look, we are very encouraged by the pipeline. It has been a busier year than last year, which we were expecting, just given last year there were fewer opportunities. Encouraged by our performance through that. The pipeline is slightly higher than it was this time last year. If you will recall, Q4 last year, it had been starting to build. You mentioned IKEA. Look, IKEA, we are defending some revenues, but there is also an opportunity for us to expand revenues. We have talked about this before. We are seeing more and more opportunities within the pipeline being a little bit defensive, but also big opportunities to expand.
IKEA is the big one, but there are a couple of others, which include both opportunity and defending some revenues. Again, in terms of the losses and the drag into 2027, look, I am not concerned about the drag of losses into 2027. It is not unusual to have those. I think the more important point is, Cindy talked about it in August, really focusing on client retention. There is a bit more that we need to do in that area. Encouraged by the retentions in Q3, DoorDash and Coke, but continued area of focus for us.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Steve Liechti from Deutsche Numis. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Yeah, morning. I have just got a couple, please. Just on the fourth quarter, given the comp is easier by about one percentage point against the second and third quarter, you are alluding to the improving trend in kind of new business relative to losses, is there any way that that fourth quarter could be positive overall? Aligned to that question, other agencies talk about the fourth quarter being quite heavy on project-based business. Give a sort of feel in terms of what the sensitivity there is. You do not tend to talk about it. Just remind me whether you are exposed to that and if you are, kind of what the sensitivities are there and any kind of forward-looking statements you could make on what you are seeing on project-based stuff. Thanks.
Yeah. Look, I will start with the second question, Steve, and thanks for the questions. All of our peers and certainly us have got a degree of project-based business within our plan. We do not call it out because it is just part and parcel of our business and we manage through it. You see some volatility with that. But we are probably seeing a stabilization in that this year versus what we saw, perhaps, in the last couple of years. In terms of Q4, look, we have said we expect Q4 to be at the better end of that low to mid-single digit range. Our performance year- to- date, I think it is important to say, is very much in line with our expectations. We are building confidence and delivering what we said we would do.
We are also, as Cindy said, very encouraged by the conversations that we are having with clients and all of that. It gives us the confidence that Elevate28 is the right strategy and we are executing well against it. We do expect to exit 2026 where we were hoping to. That gives us confidence that we will return to growth during 2027 as we shared in February. You are right that the comp is 1% easier. I talked about the acceleration of the new business ramp-up in Q3, and I would expect the net new business impact to be kind of more similar across Q3 and Q4. I think it is also important, you said it, Q4 is our biggest quarter. So it is an important quarter, most important quarter.
If the macro environment remains very uncertain, the geopolitical environment, I think is increasingly uncertain. Therefore, our outlook is balanced, reflecting those dynamics. But look, the team are very focused on closing the year. As I said, just reiterate that expectation of low to mid-single digit decline in Q4 is where we expect it to be right now.
Great. Thanks.
Our next question is from Annick Maas from Bernstein. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Good morning. My question is on the economics of retained accounts. You mentioned Coke and DoorDash. Can you just tell us a bit more about how do retained revenues, I guess, scope and expected profitability compared to previous contracts? Did you have to do pricing concessions, or were there any additional investment commitments you had to do in order to attain those accounts? The second one is just on the back of the creative leadership change, is there any accounts you feel you might actually have to work on harder just to retain them in light of the change of the leadership there? Then maybe just trying to ask these questions in another way, but how much of Q4 is committed in order to understand just what are the remaining uncertainties besides of macro? Thank you.
You can have a go at the first one, and I will take the second one.
Okay. Annick, thanks for the question, but we are not really going to get into the economics of retained clients and individual client accounts. We are very disciplined around our commercials, and we are very focused as well on making sure that those are aligned with our client outcomes. We take that into account, and every client is different. Maybe I will ask to answer the last one, Cindy, and then you can take the point on creative leadership. In terms of the Q4 commitments, many of our client arrangements are multiyear arrangements that we have in place. As I said, Q4 is always the biggest, and you do tend to find that there are some volatility upfront in the final quarter of the year as many of our clients are closing out their year as well. It is not really the way we think or look at our business.
I wouldn't want to give you an indication of how much of that Q4 is committed, but just reiterated that we're confident in the guidance that we've given, that we'll be at the better end of that low to mid-single digit decline in the Q4.
Yeah. Thanks, Annick. I would just briefly comment by saying that I think what you're asking is, are any of our clients at risk as a result of leadership change in WPP Creative? The answer is no. There's no client relationships that I see that are at risk because our client relationships aren't tied to any one individual, right? We build long-term growth partnerships with a broad base of stakeholders within these client organizations. So I don't foresee any destabilization or risk as a result of leadership change. But thanks for your question.
Thanks.
There are no further audio questions at this time, so I'll hand the call back to Thomas for any web questions.
Perfect. Thank you, Melanie. Yes. So, we've had a number of questions on the web. Some of them have been already addressed by some of the answers you've given. One thematic question from Richard Kramer asking about iOS 17. He asks, you mentioned data partners, but with Apple taking steps to prevent ID resolution, how does this impact WPP Media and evolve their proposition?
Yeah
within the ecosystem?
Yeah, thanks for the question. It's a technical one, which I won't attempt to answer in huge amounts of detail, but the Apple browser now blocks third-party identity resolution and identity matching providers. What I will say is it doesn't really impact our data solution at all because we don't rely solely on identity matching, right? As you know, we bought InfoSum roughly two years ago. We've now fully integrated it into our WPP Open platform. It's a data collaboration platform that relies on a mix of data sources from consumer identity to our own WPP proprietary data to live signals from our ecosystem of data partners, nearly 400 of them. We use all of this data to identify untapped growth audiences and predict consumer behavior, and ultimately deliver growth outcomes for our clients.
I would say in the scheme of things, the impact on WPP to these iOS changes are minimal.
Perfect. Final question, probably for Joanne, and it partly touches on the answer you gave to Nico's question, but it's around WPP Creative. It's around what are the specific factors and in particular, whether there's any change in behavior from a client perspective that is driving the sort of delta in performance of WPP Creative in the third quarter.
Look, in short, no. I think we have a very strong creative proposition at WPP. I would say some of the best talent in the industry. Very encouraged by their win rate this year, and we are continuing to ramp those up. Increasingly, we are seeing opportunities to sell creative as part of a much broader integrated proposition with media, production, commerce, et cetera, and I think that will be an opportunity for us going forward. As I said, this has been a big lift year for the WPP Creative team as they put in place their new operating model. Most of that hard work is done now, and then we will be back to being 150% focused on that top line.
Perfect. With that, we have reached the end of the Q&A session. I will now pass back to Cindy for some concluding remarks.
Thank you, Tom. Thank you, operator, and thank you all so much for your questions. Before we end the call, I wanted to just give you a quick sense of what is next. As we talked about at our interim results, we continue to host events that spotlight what is going on behind the scenes with our key operating units. We hosted sessions with WPP Media and WPP Creative in June, and with Production in September. I hope you got a chance to see those, and if you did not, replays are available on the investor section of our website. To round off these webinars, we will be hosting another one on WPP Enterprise Solutions in early December, and my team will be in touch in due course with the details.
Thereafter, we anticipate reporting full year results in late February, and at that point, we will give a further detailed update on our strategic progress. For now, I just wanted to reinforce the message that we remain relentlessly focused on execution. While like-for-like revenue recovery does take time, we are encouraged by the progress, and we very much look forward to sharing more details with you in due course. In the meantime, I just want to say thank you again for your interest, for your engagement. Joanne and the IR team here are available if there is anything further we can do for you. For now, thank you so much. Have a great day, and bye for now.
Thank you. That now concludes this call. You may now disconnect.