The Interpublic Group (IPG) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending June 30, 2023

July 21, 2023 8:30 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good morning and welcome to the Interpublic Group Second Quarter 2023 Conference Call. All parties are in a listen-only mode until the question-and-answer portion. [Operator Instructions]. This conference is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. I would now like to introduce Mr. Jerry Leshne, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin.

Jerry Leshne

Good morning. Thank you for joining us. This morning, we are joined by our CEO, Philippe Krakowsky; and by Ellen Johnson, our CFO. We have posted our earnings release and our slide presentation on our website, interpublic.com. We will begin our call with prepared remarks to be followed by Q&A. We plan to conclude before the market opens at 9:30 Eastern.

During this call, we will refer to forward-looking statements about our company. These are subject to the uncertainties and the cautionary statement that is included in our earnings release and the slide presentation. These are further detailed in our 10-Q and other filings with the SEC. We will also refer to certain non-GAAP measures. We believe that these measures provide useful supplemental data that, while not a substitute for GAAP measures, allow for greater transparency in the review of our financial and operational performance. At this point, it is my pleasure to turn things over to Philippe Krakowsky.

Philippe Krakowsky

Thank you Jerry, good morning. As usual I will begin our call with a high level view of the quarter, Ellen will then provide additional details, and I will conclude with updates on our agencies to be followed by Q&A. Starting at the top with revenue, the organic change of our revenue before billable expenses was a decrease of 1.7% against last year’s second quarter organic growth of 7.9%. For the first six months of the year our organic decrease was 90 basis points.

During the second quarter we saw the same puts and takes on revenue that we have identified and discussed with you since the beginning of the year. Those factors continue to weigh significantly on our performance in the second quarter. Concurrently we continue to grow in areas of the business that have been key drivers of success for us over a number of years, namely our media offerings in the healthcare sector. We saw solid growth as well in disciplines such as public relations and our experiential offerings.