Publicis Groupe (AO) | Buy | Bids for LiveRamp

Research evidence excerpt

Publicis Groupe (AO) | Buy | Bids for LiveRamp

Publicis Groupe Buy | Target Price: EUR98.00

Company description Management

Publicis is the third-largest advertising agency group in the world by revenues. Its Maurice Levy, chairman of supervisory board

main agency networks are Publicis Worldwide, Leo Burnett and Saatchi & Saatchi Arthur Sadoun, CEO

(all Creative), Starcom and Zenith (both Media), Publicis Health (Healthcare), Loris Nold, CFO

Epsilon (CRM) and Sapient (Business Transformation Consulting). Under the Key shareholders

Publicis Power of One plan, it has now aggregated its activities into four units, Free float 85.50%

Communications (Creative), Media (Media Buying), Healthcare, and Digital. Harris 7.20%

Elisabeth Badinter 7.10%

Blackrock 4.60%

Investment case Valuation methodology

Superior sales mix to agency peers, with 60% of net sales being Our fair value is based on a 80/20 weighting assigned to

Connected Media (growing at mid- to high single digits) and less historical mid-cycle versus low-cycle EV/sales and EV/EBITA, and

exposed to Technology (Sapient, 15% of sales) than consulting adjusted P/E multiples based on 2026 forecasts.

peers. M&A and a large lead versus peers in net new business We also compare Publicis' multiples with listed agency peers

wins since 2019, and again YTD, adds to growth visibility in the (Dentsu, Havas, Interpublic, Omnicom, WPP), and those of IT

event of a macro downturn. Service companies like Cap Gemini, which overlap with Publicis

Clients tend to gravitate even more towards measurable Sapient (15% of sales).

targeted advertising in a downturn. Generative AI could increase Risks to our rating

personalisation at scale and also drive efficiencies (headcount Growth more narrowly based than before, needs Sapient to