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<p>Omnicom Group ranks 75 on Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For – Europe 2026 list.</p>

Fortune 100 Best Companies To Work For – Europe

With a combined revenue of $21 trillion and $2.1 trillion in profits, the 2026 Fortune 500 is the definitive list of America's largest companies.

Fortune 500

Almost $20 trillion in revenue—and a record-breaking $1.87 trillion in profits. Introducing the 2025 Fortune 500, the definitive list of the biggest companies in America.

Industries included in the sector are advertising, diversified outsourcing services, and financial data services.

Fortune Sector Leaders: Business Services

The Fortune 500, in its 70th year in 2024, ranks the biggest U.S. companies by revenue.

The Fortune 500, in its 69th year in 2023, ranks the biggest U.S. companies by revenue.

This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 68th running of the list.

This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 67th running of the list.

F500-2021-229-Omnicom Group

The advertisement giant based out of New York City provides services related to customer relationships, public relations, and marketing in over 100 countries.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 66th running of the list.

F500-2020-211-Omnicom-Group

The marketing and corporate communications holding company includes advertising, PR, and media planning agencies—including industry heavyweights TBWA, BBDO, and DDB. Together, they serve more than 5,000 clients, such as McDonald's, Apple, Unilever, and Johnson &amp; Johnson.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 65th running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 64th running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 63rd running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 62nd running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 61st running of the list. Wal-Mart claims the top spot again. See who made the list.

Wal-Mart stayed on top as its sales crept closer to half-a-trillion dollars. Apple moved into the top five. And UnitedHealth Group continued its steady climb. 

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Best Companies To Work For Europe

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Omnicom Group is a global marketing and corporate communications company. With a portfolio of over 200 brands, including renowned agencies like BBDO, DDB, TBWA, and Omnicom Media Group, Omnicom delivers services such as advertising, strategic media planning and buying, digital marketing, customer relationship management, public relations, and brand consulting. Serving thousands of global clients, the company leverages data-driven insights and creative excellence to craft impactful marketing solutions. Through its integrated approach and global reach, Omnicom helps businesses connect with their audiences.

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Omnicom Group (OMC): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

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Omnicom Group

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I will now hand the conference over to Greg Lundberg, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you for joining our third quarter 2026 earnings call. With me today are John Wren, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Phil Angelastro, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. On our website, omc.com, you will find a press release and a presentation covering the information that we will review today. An archive webcast will be available when today's call concludes. Before we start, I would like to remind everyone to read the forward-looking statements and non-GAAP financial and other information that we have included at the end of our investor presentation. Certain of the statements made today may constitute forward-looking statements. These represent our present expectations, and relevant factors that could cause actual results to differ materially are listed in our earnings materials and in our SEC filings, including our 2025 Form 10-K. During the course of today's call, we will also discuss certain non-GAAP measures.

You can find the reconciliation of these to the nearest comparable GAAP measures in the presentation materials. We will begin the call with an overview of our business from John, then Phil will review our financial results, and after our prepared remarks, we will open up the lines for your questions. I will now hand the call over to John.

Thank you, Greg. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I am pleased to share our third quarter results. As we approach the 1-year anniversary of the Interpublic acquisition, we continue to deliver on the benefits of the combination. We have strengthened our competitive market position and commercial offerings and are realizing the anticipated transaction synergies, which is reflected in our financial results. Revenue, excluding assets held for sale, grew organically 7.2% in the third quarter. Organic growth for the 9 months was 5.8%. Core adjusted EBITA margin was 18.2% in the quarter, an increase of 200 basis points versus the prior year, and our year-to-date margin of 17%, which is 210 basis points higher than the comparable level in 2025. Our margin expansion reflects strong business performance and cost synergy realization, offset by investments in our talent, operations, and platform.

Adjusted EPS in the quarter was $2.73 per share, an increase of 22% versus the prior year. Our strong financial results reflect the competitive advantages of the new Omnicom. We bring together key differentiators that drive client growth. First, Acxiom's trusted identity solution helps clients better understand their consumers. Second, our position as the largest media buyer gives us strength and scale to help clients achieve better commercial outcomes. Third, our data-informed creative leadership engages consumers and drives measurable results. Fourth, our connected capabilities model brings together media, creativity, production, and CRM to create personalized experiences across multiple channels. Lastly, Omni, our AI-powered platform, underpins it all. Together, these advantages connect the entire marketing ecosystem to drive greater value for our clients. We are also helping clients modernize their operations, get more value from their technology investments, and build a more intelligent enterprise.

Our capabilities in this area earned recognition in this quarter. Omnicom ranked first in every evaluated use case in Gartner's 2026 Critical Capabilities Report, including AI-driven marketing innovation, and was named a leader in its Magic Quadrant for global digital marketing agencies. We were also named a leader in the IDC MarketScape for worldwide AI-enabled Adobe Professional Services, recognizing our leadership in Adobe technology and AI-enabled services. Additionally, we announced a 5-year strategic collaboration agreement with Amazon Web Services that will help clients modernize their marketing infrastructure and deploy AI at scale. Beyond these recognitions and partnerships, our connected capabilities model is translating into new business, strong client retention, and expanded relationships across our portfolio. We won several new assignments, including Novo Nordisk, U.S. Bank, L'Oréal, and CVS Health.

We extended our contract with Mercedes-Benz through the end of 2029, covering media, creative, social media, event and marketing activations, and PR. In sports marketing, where we manage $9.9 billion in sponsorships and talent and oversee one-third of global sports media investments, we secured a major integrated assignment for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, spanning sponsorships, creative, and communications. Together, these wins, retentions, and expanded relationships show the growing demand for our services. We are extremely pleased with the progress in bringing Interpublic and Omnicom together. We are realizing the financial benefits of the combination and are on track to deliver $900 million in cost reduction synergies in 2026. At the same time, we are reinvesting in talent and technology to drive future growth. We have made significant platform investments that underpin our client solutions, connecting data, technology, and AI to enable smarter, faster, and more effective marketing.

Our portfolio of companies and operations have been streamlined with our connected capabilities model to simplify how we go to market. Our leadership and teams are in place, and our planned people actions are mostly behind us. We are recruiting in high-growth areas and continue to reskill our talent through certified training programs in Omni and AI. We have substantially completed our integration and outsourcing efforts in real estate and back office operations, and we are also realizing the benefits from procurement. Major progress has been made in divesting the businesses we identified as not core to our future. We expect to complete the remaining handful of dispositions in the near term. We have returned significant capital to shareholders through our $5 billion share repurchase plan. We have completed $3.2 billion of repurchases to date, with the remainder to be completed by April 2027.

None of this would've been possible without the continued focus and commitment of our people across the company. They have delivered outstanding results for clients while helping us build a stronger and more connected organization. We are pleased that these efforts are reflected in our strong third quarter and year-to-date performance and remain confident in the opportunities ahead. Phil will now provide more color on our financial performance and updated guidance. Phil?

Thanks, John. I will start on slide 13, which presents what we call our core operations, which consists of our ongoing operating businesses, excluding dispositions that we have completed and assets held for sale that have not yet been disposed. This slide also presents operating income and EBITDA on a non-GAAP adjusted basis, excluding severance and repositioning costs, acquisition integration costs, and a gain on the sale of businesses in Q3 2026. Looking at our core operations, total revenue increased $407 million or 7.3%, and adjusted EBITDA increased $191 million or 21.1%. The adjusted EBITDA margin increased 200 basis points to 18.2%.

Growth in EBITDA was driven by the realization of cost reduction synergies and growth in organic revenue, partially offset by strategic reinvestments in our business and our people, including the investments we've made in integrating and evolving our technology platforms, as well as enhancements of our agentic AI capabilities. Slide 14 reflects the same presentation on a year-to-date basis, where notably adjusted EBITDA increased $553 million or 23%, and the related margin increased 210 basis points to 17.0%. Let's turn to slide 15, which presents our third quarter consolidated reported results and the related non-GAAP adjusted amounts. Please note that because these are reported results, the 2025 presentation reflects the prior year results of Omnicom only and does not include Interpublic. The center columns for each period show the applicable non-GAAP adjustments.

In the third quarter of 2026, integration related costs were $40.4 million, which are recorded on the SG&A expense line. Severance and repositioning costs were $85 million and relate to real estate impairment charges recorded in Q3. Finally, a gain of $106.8 million on the sale of businesses in the third quarter of 2026. Below operating income, net interest expense increased to $104 million from $43 million in 2025, due primarily to the assumption of Interpublic's debt of approximately $3 billion. Interest expense increased by $72 million, primarily due to the Interpublic acquisition, as well as from refinancing activity we completed during the first quarter of 2026 and from commercial paper borrowings. Interest income increased by $11 million to $29 million, primarily due to higher average cash balances. Depreciation expense in the quarter was $47 million, and amortization expense was $120 million.

Both increased year-over-year, primarily due to the Interpublic acquisition. Quarterly depreciation and amortization levels have been relatively consistent throughout the year, and we would expect Q4 amounts to be similar. Our adjusted tax rate of 25% for the quarter was down a bit from 26% in 2025. For Q4 2026, we estimate our rate to be approximately 26%. Our non-GAAP adjusted net income increased $315.8 million to $752.2 million. Non-GAAP adjusted diluted EPS grew 22% to $2.73 per share from $2.24 per share last year, driven by an increase in adjusted net income. Our fully diluted weighted average shares outstanding for the third quarter were 275.4 million, which increased from Q3 of last year due to shares issued for the Interpublic acquisition, but were down 12% from 313.1 million shares outstanding at year-end 12/31/2025 due to share repurchase activity.

Now let's review revenue drivers in more detail, beginning with the components of our revenue change on slide 16. To assist in understanding the drivers of our underlying businesses, this analysis focuses on growth from our core operations exclusive of businesses that have been disposed of or are expected to be disposed of. Organic revenue growth in the quarter was 7.2%, and the impact from foreign exchange translations was positive 0.1%, along with a nominal impact from a small acquisition. In total, revenue from core operations was just over $6 billion. Year to date, organic revenue growth was 5.8%. Given the strong results year to date, we now estimate that full year 2026 organic core revenue growth will be approximately 5%. As you can see, there have been a couple small acquisitions this year contributing a nominal amount to growth.

Despite our disposition efforts, we are always actively looking at strategic acquisitions that could enhance our service offerings and competitive profile. Foreign currency translation was also nominal in the quarter. Assuming recent FX rates stay the same, we estimate FX will be slightly negative for Q4 and bringing the full year to a positive of approximately half of 1%. Turning to slide 17, you can see our core operations revenue by discipline for the quarter. In the third quarter of 2026, revenue for integrated media was approximately 53% of our revenues, which included our media, commerce, data, CRM, consulting, and content automation businesses. Revenue for advertising was 15.6%. Health was 9%. PR was 11%, and experiential and other was 11%. Organic revenue growth rates for these core operations disciplines were as follows. Integrated media led the way with very strong growth over 10%.

Experiential and other growth was strong double digit in the quarter, again driven by experiential growth related to the FIFA World Cup. However, we do not expect growth in this discipline in Q4. Health was marginally negative in the quarter. Advertising was down in the mid-single digits, an improvement from the first half of 2026, and PR growth was low single digits for the quarter. Slide 18 shows our core operations revenue by region for the quarter. In terms of the top markets, the U.S. represents 60% of revenue. Together, the U.K. and Europe were 21%, followed by Asia-Pacific at 10%, Latin America at 4%, other North America at 3%, and Middle East and Africa at 2%. During the quarter, organic revenue growth rates were as follows. U.S. grew 10%, the U.K. was negative low single digit, and the rest of Europe grew mid-single digit.

Latin America and Asia Pacific growth was also mid-single digit, while Middle East and Africa declined mid-single digits as a result of the ongoing conflict. Slide 19 is our revenue weighted by the industry sectors of our clients. Year to date as of the third quarter, pharma and health was our largest category at 19% of revenue. Other double-digit categories include food and beverage, auto, and financial services. Slide 20 is a view of our free cash flow and our primary uses of cash for the first 9 months of the year. The increases in free cash flow and capital expenditures are primarily due to the addition of Interpublic's business. Dividends increased to $703.3 million, resulting from the additional shares issued for the IPG acquisition and the recent increase in the quarterly dividend amount.

Capital expenditures, including investment initiatives, grew year-over-year but are at similar levels to the combined historical results of the company. Cash paid for acquisitions in the quarter primarily reflects the acquisition of non-controlling minority interests, as well as earn-out payments on previously completed acquisitions. In the third quarter, as part of our integration efforts, we acquired several minority interests in existing subsidiaries, including IPG's former Middle East affiliate. Additionally, proceeds from assets held for sale for the 9 months were $413.9 million, as seen on slide 26 in the appendix. The most notable change in this table is the change in stock repurchases, which were $3.2 billion during the 9 months of 2026, up from $3 billion as of June 30, 2026.

We plan to repurchase additional shares during Q4 2026, and by April 2027, we plan to complete the $5 billion share repurchase program announced in February of 2026. Our definition of free cash flow excludes changes in operating capital, and those changes are set forth in the non-GAAP reconciliations in the appendix on slide 26. Changes in operating capital in the first 9 months of 2026 were negative $2.3 billion of cash, compared to negative $1.4 billion in the same period last year. This increase is primarily due to the addition of Interpublic's business and operations in 2026, which are not included in the prior year amounts, and incremental payments related to severance, repositioning, and integration costs, as well as lease and contractual termination payments. For the 3 months ended September 30, 2026, changes in operating capital were positive $119 million.

Slide 21 is a summary of our credit, liquidity, and debt maturities. At the end of the third quarter of 2026, our gross long-term debt was $10.2 billion. Relative to 2025, changes reflect the retirement of our $1.4 billion, 3.6% senior notes that were due April 15, 2026, and the issuance of new senior notes totaling $2.3 billion including $1.7 billion of U.S. dollar-denominated notes at a weighted average coupon of 4.9% and EUR 600 million of euro-denominated notes at a 3.85% coupon. Our next maturity in July of 2027 is now classified as current, which we will address in due course, and we are comfortable with our maturity schedule. Net interest expense is expected to increase to just under $100 million in Q4 2026, from the Q4 2025 actual amount of $53.2 million.

The majority of the increase is due to long-term debt assumed from Interpublic, as well as new debt issued and debt refinancing activities in 2026. Please note that the total and net leverage ratios on this slide, which compares the last 12 months ended September 30, 2026, and the prior year, reflect the full assumption of Interpublic's debt, but only EBITDA from Interpublic for the 10 months since the date of acquisition. At September 30, 2026, we were in compliance with the leverage ratio covenant in our credit facility, which makes pro forma adjustments for the impact of the acquisition. On this basis, our total leverage ratio was 2.3 times, which is lower than the 2.7 times at September 30, 2025. Our cash equivalents and short-term investments at the end of the quarter were $3.8 billion.

Our liquidity also includes an undrawn $3.5 billion revolving credit facility, which backstops our $3 billion commercial paper program. Before we begin the Q&A session, I would like to provide some additional color on our results to assist you in understanding the prior year base for Q4 2025 in your models. In the tables we have shown you today, such as slide 13, the results for core operations are comparable on a year-over-year basis. Regarding the dispositions and held for sale columns, it's important to note that the 2025 dispositions and asset sale for sale results include all businesses designated as assets held for sale, regardless of when they were disposed of in 2026.

The 2026 dispositions and assets held for sale results include all businesses designated as assets held for sale that were not disposed of as of September 30, 2026, or were disposed of during the third quarter ended September 30, 2026. The estimate of annualized revenue for all businesses identified as dispositions and held for sale is an annualized revenue of approximately $3.6 billion in prior year, adjusted EBITDA margin for the year of approximately 11%-12%. To assist investors, slide 32 summarizes revenue and adjusted EBITDA for Q4 2025, including the split between core and dispositions and held for sale. Regarding the businesses in held for sale at the end of the quarter, we expect to complete the remaining dispositions in the near future and by the end of Q4 2026, if possible.

While our goal remains December 31, 2026, it is possible that the closing process for some of the transactions extends into the beginning of 2027. Currently, we estimate the revenue related to those businesses will approximate $325 million in Q4 2026. In closing, our third quarter results show continued improvement in our performance, including revenue growth, adjusted EBITDA margins, and earnings per share. We're achieving this while continuing to invest in our business to ensure our success in the future, and while nearing completion on the significant integration projects and our portfolio optimization projects. We believe we're in a strong position heading into the new year and beyond, and look forward to seeing many of you at investor events in the coming weeks. I will now ask the operator to please open the lines up for questions and answers. Thank you.

We will now begin the question and answer session. Please limit yourself to 1 question. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by for a moment while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first call comes from the line of David Karnovsky with J.P. Morgan. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hi. Thanks. John, just when we look at the organic growth to date, in particular for media, it is a strong improvement from where Omnicom was operating pre-IPG. Just given the changes in the portfolio, do you see room to sustain at these levels on a go-forward basis? For Phil, your core margin to date I think is 17%. Historically, IPG would post stronger margins in Q4, and you do have the benefit of more fully realizing synergies from here. Just wanted to see if there was any view you would be willing to provide on how to think about the full-year core margin. Thank you.

Our connected capabilities, which include media, CRM, advertising, continue to be a very strong offering in the marketplace, and we fully expect that to continue into 2027 as we finish this year. What our organic revenue growth will be for next year, we are not prepared to forecast just yet, but everything has come together pretty well, and our expectations are to stay at a marketing leader position in terms of organic growth going forward.

As far as margins go, David, I think we grew our margins about 200 basis points in Q3. For the 9-month period, margins were up 210 basis points. Although we always say we are focused on growing EBITA dollars, which we are, and the margins take care of themselves, I think you should expect something similar. We will certainly going to be striving to grow margins a little bit more in Q4, but I would expect something similar in Q4 and the full year will be an add them up, which given we are at 210 basis points through 9 months, it is going to be in that zone, is what I would say our current expectation is. There is certainly the usual situation in Q4 in terms of where we sit today.

We don't have a lot of visibility into project spend at this point, but that certainly we would expect is going to be helpful. We just don't have full visibility to it today.

Phil, just to that last point on visibility into project work, just how much does that kind of factor into your kind of implied organic for Q4, which is a bit of a detail, or are there kind of other factors that maybe helped in 2Q, 3Q that are a part of that as well?

We certainly think it's a conservative estimate, which is consistent with how we've always approached this process, especially for Q4. I think depending where we come out with project spend, while we're not we're certainly, the global macro seems to be fine at the moment, even though there's some headwinds, or a lot of press anyway and noise related to the Middle East. But certainly we expect it to benefit us in the fourth quarter. We just don't have enough visibility to kind of commit to by how much that benefit is going to help us.

David, you've been covering us a long time, and as long as I remember, as we come into the fourth quarter, there's always a couple of hundred million dollars worth of spend that as clients look to see what's left in their budgets, they either release it, or if they're looking to report more revenue or more net income themselves, sometimes they don't. We have confidence that we've been saying the same thing for the last 20 years, and probably of that, only 1 or 2 years that excess didn't come through. But as Phil just said, we prefer to be conservative in our estimates, because it helps keep everything else in line.

Yeah, in terms of how we manage the cost base. It isn't anything inconsistent with how we've approached it in the past.

Your next question comes from the line of Adam Berlin with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Yeah. Hi, good evening. It's Adam Berlin from Goldman Sachs. A couple of questions. The first one is just during the call, I think Ad Age have reported that you've won the Coke North America account. Congratulations on that. Just any comments, particularly given that you also work with Pepsi on creative. Can you keep both? Any conflicts around that, or should we assume that you benefit from the Coke win and also continue to work with Pepsi as you are at the moment? That's the first question. Second question is, can you just give us an update for 2026 at 9 months, how much of the $900 million of the synergies is already in the numbers up to the 9 months? That would be very helpful. Thank you.

In terms of Coke, we're deferring any comments we want to make about Coke to the client for them to handle as they come to a decision after the process. Any business we win from Coke would be incremental to our existing revenue and our existing relationship because the decision that was made earlier in this third quarter. We're very bullish about where we are and how we're winning business as it comes available, and we feel really good about the company at the moment.

As far as the second question, Adam, we continue to track where we expected to be, which is where we're on track to achieve the $900 million in cost reduction synergies. We also, as we had indicated, expect to deliver 75%-85% of that to the bottom line as we go through the year, and we're certainly on pace with where we expected to be when we started out the year. There's a lot of moving parts in the business in terms of how that's going to play through or flow through with the rest of the growth and investments we're making.

But we're certainly on track through the first 9 months, and we don't have any reason to believe anything other than we will achieve the goal when we get to the end of the year, and then we'll certainly start or continue to focus on what comes next in 2027. A number of those efforts with respect to additional synergies in 2027 have been put in place and it's just a matter of timing as to when those improvements come through.

Your next question comes from the line of Jason Bazinet with Citigroup. Your line is unmuting. Just a few seconds. Go ahead.

Thanks. Can I just ask 1 question about the revenues from the assets that you are holding for sale? I think on the last call, you expected about $300 million, and then in the fourth quarter, you anticipated about $225 million. If I am reading these slides right, I think it was over $400 million is still there in the third quarter. Can you just give us an updated number for the fourth quarter?

Sure. You are right, the number in Q3 coming from businesses that we had not disposed of, either as of 9/30 or we disposed of during the quarter, during the third quarter, came through at about $412 million, which is higher than our estimate. It is, as we have said before, quite difficult to estimate the timing of when these deals are going to close. We are certainly, we believe, on track for getting the vast majority, and we anticipate all of the transactions that we had anticipated disposing, the sales and dispositions done by the end of the year. It is possible, as I said in my prepared remarks, that could go into early 2027 when they actually officially close.

We updated the estimate for the fourth quarter. At this point, we expect about $325 million of revenue from the deals that haven't been completed in Q4.

Again, it's difficult to know when to estimate when the deal's going to get signed. That is the update for Q4.

Probably the point we want to leave with you is that we submit substantially through that effort, and we're down to a handful of organizations that we're in the process of talking to potential buyers.

Yeah. We've got some bankers involved and certainly good progress at this point. But until they're done, they're not done. And we continue to push to get the deals done and we can't wait until they're completed.

We want to get back into acquisition mode. And we have been entertaining some discussions with potential targets that would help the future of the business and the future growth of the business. But the sooner we can get the dispositions behind us, the better. I think investors and analysts certainly would agree and that's what we endeavor to do.

Your next question comes from the line of Steven Cahall from Wells Fargo. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thank you. So kind of a two-parter. Was wondering if you could talk about the biggest sources of acceleration and growth. Just looking at percentage of revenue, it looks like it is probably in the integrated media division. I would love to know, is that driven by wins? Is that driven by expansion of businesses and just the complexity in the media world? Then, related, if we back some of the synergies out of the incremental EBITA you are seeing at core, it looks like the margin on revenue growth is pretty low. Is that because the media business is a little lower margin when you started off? Is that because you are reinvesting in more? Just help us kind of understand, ex synergies, what the margins are looking like on revenue growth. Thank you.

Yeah. I will do the synergies part. I think similar to what I said previously, Steve, there is a bunch of factors that are contributing to the improvement in EBITA dollar growth and certainly, a key part of that is the revenue growth that we have achieved through the first 9 months. There is also, as I had said before, we are tracking to achieve the synergies that we expected to achieve to get the costs out of the business and we are certainly balancing the timing of when those synergies are being achieved and the timing of the investments that we are making in the underlying business, especially our technology platforms, including the Omni platform and our agentic AI capabilities that we have been investing in over the last, since the deal closed. We are very happy with all that progress.

It's kind of accelerated in terms of us getting to where we need to get to sooner and quicker, and we believe we're in a much better place today than we were back in December when we closed the transaction. All that is in the impact of, or the drivers of what's impacting our increased EBITA growth, and we're certainly satisfied with 9 months of growth at 5.8% organic. EBITA dollar growth of $553 million, 210 basis points of EBIT on margin improvement, and 21% EPS growth. While I know everybody wants to do their mathematical calculations related to the $900 million, we're managing the business overall, and we're pleased with the overall results.

What I would add to that is we're very happy with the 200 basis point improvement in our EBIT, and we feel very encouraged to invest money over and above that improvement in our business and the ongoing efforts of what we're doing in platforms, and making us more attractive to potential clients. Not doing the math the same way you just might have suggested you're doing it, and I don't think that would help you get an accurate view going forward of what you can expect from us. We're going to hold those margins where they are now, or aspire to, and actually grow our business and our organic growth at the same time, while making some very significant investments, especially in our AI work and our platforms, which we think will contribute to our ongoing growth.

I'm actually trying to explain what you can expect from us, which I think is all positive. It just doesn't follow that math.

That's helpful. Is media the place that we're seeing that investment come through in growth?

Yes, I think so. The 2 areas that I point out for the quarter was the consistent growth in media, which has been true throughout the entire year, and we were benefited by the World Cup, and somewhat by the midterm elections in the third quarter, contributed to our overall reported organic growth. Next year, we won't have that, but next year, we'll be looking forward to the 2028 Olympics. It's a little hard to get too far in front of ourselves.

Your next question comes from the line of Sean Diffley with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Great. Thanks very much, team. I was hoping you could discuss pitch activity now, how aggressive the pitches are, any concessions on pricing we should be thinking about. Obviously, this Coke news would be helpful, but you've also spoken about some disappointment on the Pepsi loss. Just what is the pitch activity like? How aggressive are your competitors? Is the first question. Then the second, maybe this AWS deal, just talk about what exactly that looks like. Can that be incremental to numbers? What are you guys bringing to the table? Obviously, Amazon, a really good partner. Thanks so much.

The pitch activity is about the same as it typically is, and it's pretty healthy, and we're winning more than our fair share. Not all the names are household names like Pepsi or Coke, but we're making real progress, and I think as we come to the end of the year and you see our results compared to our competitors, we're in a very positive place. I would say that there's more opportunity for business we're not defending as we look forward, where if winning it would be a net gain to our operating position. I think whatever accounts wanted to go into review, for the most part have in the first 9 months of this year. We've cleared that, and we're now looking to a brighter future in terms of pitch activity.

Certainly, the investments we spoke about earlier on the call are a big part of our actual win rate in pitches to date post this transaction, and we are quite comfortable that those are the right investments to make, that will only help us accelerate that good performance in pitches going forward.

If Paolo's with us, you might want to add to what investments we're making to the platform and what we're doing.

Sure. With respect to the AWS question, Sean, it absolutely is meant to drive joint growth for our partnership. As you know, we're a big AWS partner, and this is really leveraging our technology consulting capabilities and implementation skills to drive more cloud-based AI solutions that are AWS-centric. It is something that we've been doing already for many of our clients, but this is establishing a more dedicated unit that's going to focus on driving that growth.

Your next question comes from the line of Julien Roch with Barclays. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Yes. Good evening, everybody. Thank you for taking my question, and congratulations on Coke North America. Phil, thank you very much, or Greg, for slide 33, which allows us to know core and disposition last year. On that slide, you are talking about $890 million of disposition revenue in Q4 last year, which gets you to $3.527 billion, but you just upgraded or increased the disposition to $3.6 billion. Will we get $73 million of disposition in 2027? That is my first question. The second question is, outside of the 2026 disposition running into 2027, can we expect no more disposition next year and the disappearance of core and disposition, and we get clean numbers? That is my second question. Then the third one is, using again slide 33, your core EBITA last year was $3.490 billion, so $3.5 billion.

At the Barclays September Media and Telecom conference, Phil, you said that the way to think about 2026 EBITA should be 2025 plus the $75 million-$80 million of synergies, so about $4.2 billion. Is that still the right way to think about 2026 EBITA? Thank you.

All right. Stay on the line because I think I am going to need you to clarify a couple of things. There was an awful lot there, Julien.

With respect to 2027 and 2027 in reporting when it comes to core and disposition, certainly the goal is for us not to need to continue to split the numbers in that way. We are confident we are going to get through the dispositions by the end of the year, as we said. Certainly, we are on track to do that, and we expect to do that by the end of the year or very early in January. We can put the core and dispositions and asset held for sale reporting behind us. That is certainly the goal. We will keep you updated if anything changes, but that is the expectation. As far as the reference to the $3.6 billion of annualized revenue. On the last call, the estimate we gave was 35-36, so we are at the higher end of that range.

And I think if I understand you right, when you add up the dispositions and held for sale Q1 to Q4, which we now kind of laid out for 2025, that number is a little bit less than 3.6. That is just the timing of.

There were a couple of added dispositions in terms of the annual revenue so that people could get an idea of what the annual revenue was. The 36 and the 35 something does not mean there is going to be additional disposition revenue in 2027. It is just a timing issue. There were a couple businesses that we added in Q2 to the disposition list, which led to a difference in the annualized revenue from our first estimate. That really is not an important point. It is roughly a similar number and similar to the estimate we gave last time. We do not think anything changed in any material way. Then the third part of your question, I think you just need to walk me through again, so that I can respond to it.

Using page 33 again, the slide, we now calculate that core EBITA last year was $3,490. So let us call that $3.5 billion, right? So that is 2025 core EBITA of $3.5 billion. And at our September conference, you said that the way to think about 2026 EBITA would be to take 2025 EBITA plus 75%-80% of the synergies. So if I take 75% or 80% of the synergies added to that $3.5 billion, then you get about $4.2 billion of core EBITA for 2026. I wanted to know whether that was the right way to think about it still.

I think the answer is yes, but I will just add to that. When we look at the overall expectations for 2026 for the year, as we said earlier on the call, and as we have said previous to this, we have achieved about 200-210 basis points improvement over the prior year through 9 months. Pretty consistent through the quarters. And that is our expectation for the year, including the math on the synergies, including incremental contributions from the business itself and the growth, and including the investments we are making in our platforms and in our people and talent and everything else that is going on so that we can better prepare the company for sustained long-term growth. We are certainly satisfied with the progress to date. That is what we expect.

I think if you just isolate the synergies in and of themselves, you get close to the number you just described. But the 210 basis points or so of margin improvement and EBITA growth in total is ultimately what we are focused on. That is going to be a number with a lot of different things in it. Timing impacts that. Investments impact that. Ultimately, I think the answer is yes to your question, but it is all in there. It is not just a simple static planning spreadsheet that we use. The operations have a lot of different moving parts, and that is what we ultimately expect the result to be.

That is very clear. 200-210 basis point of margin improvement. Thank you very much, Phil.

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Nathanson with MoffettNathanson. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thanks. I just have a quick one for Phil Angelastro. Trying to understand the acquisition strategy year to date. Looks like you spent $303 million on page 20 on acquisitions. What type of acquisitions were those? In the revenue contribution line, you are showing a very small contribution from M&A. Help me understand, what are you buying and what is being reflected in the revenue contribution line, if that is possible?

Sure. I think I touched on this in the prepared remarks, but to expand on it a little bit. In the cash flow that is in the investor presentation, on that line, there are basically 3 things. One of them is traditional acquisitions. That number is very small, as I have said. It is just a small acquisition. Nothing really to speak of in terms of cash or even revenue and EBITA contribution. We do expect and have started to get back into acquisition mode, and we will get back into acquisition mode. The primary focus to date has been completing the dispositions. A very small traditional acquisition number. We have also got some earn-out payments that are in that number, as we always historically do. There are still a few outstanding earn-outs. Some of those payments that are on the acquisition line relate to earn-outs.

In addition to that, probably the biggest component of the spend has been an increase in spend on acquiring minority interests, which is part of our integration plan from the beginning, because as we make some of the changes we have made globally, outside the U.S. especially, we have integrated operations. As part of that we bought out some minority interests so that we could merge and integrate the businesses and operate more efficiently market by market. Most of the spend in the acquisition category through 9 months relates to acquisitions of additional minority interests. That is certainly where the numbers are coming from. There really is not a lot of activity in terms of traditional M&A that is contributing to revenue and EBITA growth so far through the first 9 months.

Right. Probably the biggest number in there is we topped up our ownership of what was Interpublic's Middle East operations, where they owned 51%, we repurchased the other 49%.

Yeah. That was the single biggest spend number.

That's why the revenues don't change because you were consolidating it anyway, so it's just owning 100%.

Omnicom Group (OMC) Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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