2020 Annual Financial Report

Message from the Chairman of the Management Board - Arthur Sadoun

…We will continue to work alongside our clients to help them grow profitably and enable us  to return to growth, thanks to our unique and connected offer: personalized profiles to better understand their consumers, disruptive and dynamic creativity to strengthen their image and justify their premium, targeted media to better reach their audiences and technology to build a direct relationship with their consumers.

It is important to note that this performance was achieved even though we decided not to call on any aid from the French State.

This performance would not have been possible without the strength and daily commitment of our employees.

From the start of the crisis, when we realized how devastating this pandemic would be, we acted quickly to adapt to it. This resulted in voluntary reductions in salaries by around 6,000 of our managers and the introduction of new targets for the rest of the year. Thanks to the collective performance of our teams, all the more remarkable in this difficult period, we were able to reimburse the salary reductions and increase the variable compensation package.

It is now clear that the world will continue to suffer the health, social and economic consequences of the pandemic. We are therefore approaching 2021 with the same combative spirit that has driven us in recent months. We will redouble our efforts to continue to take care of the physical and mental health of our employees, help our clients win in a world dominated by platforms and further increase our efficiency.

With the Management Committee, we will still work to ensure the well-being and health of each of our employees after a full year of lockdowns and restrictions for many of them. Our Marcel platform will give us more flexibility in the way we work and allocate our resources. We will also accelerate the implementation of our actions in favor of Diversity, Equality and Inclusion and the reduction of our environmental impacts...

We will subsequently continue to work alongside our clients to help them grow profitably and enable us to return to growth, thanks to our unique and connected offer: personalized profiles to better understand their consumers, disruptive and dynamic creativity to strengthen their image and justify their premium, targeted media to better reach their audiences and technology to build a direct relationship with their consumers.

Lastly, our global delivery centers, our shared services organization, our country model and Marcel are competitive advantages that will continue to support our financial strength. The efficiency of our organization will allow us to continue to invest for the future, as we did in 2020.

I would like to thank all of the Publicis Groupe teams for their extraordinary efforts during this period, as well as the Supervisory Board for its unwavering support throughout the year, and in particular its Chairman, Maurice Lévy, who was more than ever present to advise and support us. His experience and knowledge of the Group are valuable assets in this period. Finally, I would like to thank our clients and shareholders for their trust and collaboration.

Our transformation enabled us to weather the storm last year. Thanks to our assets, our unique offering and our organization, we have achieved among the best organic growth in our industry, particularly in the United States and Asia, as well as financial ratios that remain the highest among our peers. Thus, while we are clear about the challenges that lie ahead, we are confident in the Group’s ability to emerge stronger from this crisis and return to growth.

 Our transformation enabled us to weather the storm last year. Thanks to our assets, our unique offering and our organization, we have achieved among the best organic growth in our industry, particularly in the United States and Asia, as well as financial ratios that remain the highest among our peers. Thus, while we are clear about the challenges that lie ahead, we are confident in the Group’s ability to emerge stronger from this crisis and return to growth.