S4 Capital plc (SFOR) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

So good morning, all. Q1 2025, I'm joined by casts of thousands here in London. On my left is Radhika, who's just joined us as CFO, subbing for Mary on my right, who is masterminding the handover period with Radhika. On her right is Scott Spirit, and on my left is Jean-Benoit Berty. So we're here this morning to go through Q1. A trading update from Mary is the first section. Second section, market momentum; third, client analysis; and then business momentum, all done by Scott. And then I'll come back briefly for a summary and outlook, and then we'll take any Q&A. So this is the first of 2 webcasts today. The later on will be at 1:00 London time, mainly with the West and East Coast in America. So thank you for that. Mary?

Thank you, Martin. Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. The macroeconomic environment remained challenging in the first quarter. Net revenue of GBP 164 million decreased 12% on a reported basis or 11% like-for-like, with continued caution from clients and a reduction in activity from one key technology services client already disclosed. Operational EBITDA for the quarter was in line with our expectations. It benefits from cost reductions made as we continue to align our resources with activity levels. We maintain our full year guidance on a constant currency basis with target net revenue and operational EBITDA broadly similar to 2024. We continue to take a disciplined approach to cost management, including headcount and discretionary costs with a focus on utilization, billing and pricing. We expect performance to improve in the second half with a greater weighting than the prior year, aided by the phasing of new business revenue and our traditional seasonality. Net debt at the end of March was GBP 145 million or 1.7x operational EBITDA. This compares to GBP 206 million at the end of March 2024. Our full year net debt guidance remains GBP 100 million to GBP 140 million. Moving to the next slide, let's take a look at first quarter net revenue by our new practice structure and region. My comments here are all on a like-for-like basis. Marketing Services net revenue was down 8% at GBP 148 million with ongoing client caution and large technology clients prioritizing AI expenditure over marketing. Activity with GM, Amazon and a key TMT client continues to ramp up. The practice remains focused on efficiency, utilization and billability to improve margins. In Technology Services, net revenue decreased 37% due to the already announced reduction from one key client and longer sales cycles for new business. From a regional perspective, net revenue in the Americas declined 11%, driven by Technology Services. EMEA was down 16%, reflecting lower activity in the U.K., the Netherlands and Germany, and APAC reduced 11% with slower demand in Australia. I'm pleased to welcome Radhika. We've been working closely together in the last week, and I will continue to support her through the handover. And finally, I'd like to say how much I've enjoyed working with Martin and the team and have learned a lot in the last 3 years. And as I move on, I wish the company all the best for the future. Thank you very much. I'll now hand over to Scott for the market and client update.

Thank you, Mary. Good morning, everybody, and thank you very much for joining the call. If we take a look at the current market dynamics, and clearly, we are in volatile times, and this is driving caution and uncertainty from clients. In terms of market momentum, the challenges we've seen with tech companies reducing their marketing expenditures persist. They continue to prioritize CapEx investments, particularly AI spend, over OpEx and marketing spends. In Q1 2025, Google sales and marketing expenditure was down over 5%, and Amazon's CapEx was up over 75% year-on-year. They'll spend over GBP 100 billion this year. If you look at the 4 hyperscalers, Google, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft, they will spend a combined over $330 billion this year, up almost 40% on 2024. Now whilst tariffs don't directly impact our business, there are second order effects given the significant impacts they may have on some of our clients. It's a fluid situation and too early to give accurate projections, but it certainly adds to the uncertainty of our clients are facing and clearly creates a challenging environment. We have already seen analysts pull back their forecast for marketing and technology spend in 2025. That said, we have maintained our guidance based on the business momentum that we see. From a revenue perspective, whilst we've continued to see pressure from certain technology companies and are still lapping the impact of the First American business in Tech Services, we have had a strong start to the year with new business, including a recent win, which should double the size of one of our existing whoppers in the TMT sector. We -- as we discussed in March, we are also anticipating the ramp-up of our GM and Amazon business in H2 2025. We continue to attract excellent talent, which will help us drive our growth agenda forward, including a new Chief Growth Officer for our Tech Services business who started in Q1 and has already expanded the pipeline. And of course, as per last week's announcement, Radhika joins as CFO; and Nirvik Singh joins us as a nonexecutive Director. From a margin perspective, our COO, JB, discussed in detail the 3 pillars he's focused on in March, starting with increasing discipline around the predictability of our revenue, allowing for more effective recruitment and resourcing, and then a series of initiatives around productivity and profitability to drive margin improvement. As a result, we maintain our guidance of net revenue and operational EBITDA to be broadly similar to 2024 on a constant currency basis. We have a very compelling client list with some of the world's leading and most innovative companies. In 2024, 9 of them were what we call whoppers. That's revenues of more than USD 20 million, which is a differentiator for a company of our scale. Most of our direct competitors have a much more fragmented client list with smaller relationships. As you can see, we continue to be skewed towards the tech industry, but wins such as GM, which should scale up to a top 3 clients in 2025 are changing that profile. These are strong relationships that help us attract and retain talent to work on them. The continued softness we're seeing in technology client spend and the First American decline in our Tech Services practice have had a negative effect on the average revenue size of our top 10, 20 and 50 clients, but this is primarily driven by reductions in spend rather than lost business. I now have a few slides on the momentum we are seeing in 3 areas of our business, which give us confidence despite the challenging macro environment. Firstly, we have great traction around the go-to-market propositions that I discussed at our last earnings presentation. Those are real-time brands, orchestration, glass box media and digital transformation. Today, I'm going to zoom in on real-time brands. The idea behind this proposition is that we exist to bridge the gap between brand strategies and media effectiveness in a real-time world. As consumers, we're already at peak media consumption capacity. Our brains and the media platforms we have used have evolved to help us navigate the cognitive overload we experience daily. How and when we engage provides feedback and allows the platforms to optimize our experience. We see more of what we engage with and less of what we don't. Our real-time brand approach adapts this for the process of enduring brand building across the platforms. We examine what drives the decision to engage with the brand. It is a combination of familiar attributes that queue recognition and identity, and the contextual variables that reflect relevance and novelty. Our job then is to work with the client to identify combinations of strategic, creative and media dimensions that deliver the optimal brand experiences for their consumers. We create better connections in the moment and drive brand familiarity over time. And in a continuous loop, we gain insights from these connections and apply them to the brand experience over time and across the ecosystem. We concept and produce multidimensional creative. These are big ideas that connect every day and everywhere to be effective. They're multicultural. The brand values are reflected through culture-informed experiences. They're multi-moment. The expressions are designed for moments of captive attention. They're multi-outcome. The content is aware of its role and optimized for results. And multi-touch point, ensuring relevance by designing for native channel behaviors. All of this adds up to real-time brands, creating recognizable and relevant connections for more channels, places and moments, maximizing the value of each opportunity to connect with their audiences and growing smarter and more effective with every interaction. This has led to our latest major win, which will contribute to our second half performance. And once it ramps up in a full year double the size of one of our existing TMT whopper clients. Two other clients, which are also driving our second half performance are Amazon, where we have significantly expanded our relationship; and GM, which we won last year and which continues to scale and ramp up. They're also both great examples of clients working with Monks to leverage artificial intelligence for meaningful results. With Amazon, we've built an agentic AI workflow with them, which has significantly reduced campaign development time and cost for assets, meaning they can make their budgets work much harder. With GM, we're building a completely new approach to marketing and content development for them, leveraging Monks.Flow and technology from partners such as Adobe, NVIDIA and Runway. The initial results are exciting, and watch this space for future developments. The third area I want to highlight is our burgeoning presence in the Middle East, where we have almost 100 months across our offices in Dubai, our regional HQ in Riyadh and our regional production hub in Cairo recently opened in June 2025, a strong local, regional and international team led by Omar. In the past 3 years, we've built a strong sustainable business with an enviable client list and a particular strength in servicing local clients. Examples include PIF, where we have a strong strategic partnership working for PIF themselves and many of their portfolio businesses. For PIF, we've built their social presence into a strategic asset across multiple platforms, developing an always-on narrative, amplifying events, deepening engagement and elevating their brand. For NEOM, from developing the first page of their website to building their data infrastructure, we continue to develop their social presence on their master brand channels to deepen engagement with global and local audiences, including investors, talent and future residents. And for Qiddiya, we have developed a state-of-the-art experience center for investors and visitors, bringing the city to life with immersive designs and technology. In addition, we built their corporate website and set up their social media ecosystem over the past 2 years. We're excited to be kicking off SEVEN entertainment ventures strategy scope this month, along with more exciting new work to be disclosed very soon. We're confident the Middle East will be a growth engine for us in the second half, but also going forward. And with that, I'll hand over to Martin for the summary.

Thanks, Mary. Thanks, Scott. So just to summarize where we are at the end of Q1. Net revenue at GBP 164 million was down about 12% reported and about 11% like-for-like, reflecting ongoing caution from clients and the expected decline in activity from one key Technology Services client. Our net debt at GBP 145 million represents leverage of about 1.7x EBITDA versus GBP 206 million this time last year in 2024 and reflects an ongoing focus on working capital and cost control. Under the unified Monks brand, we are now reporting as 2 streamline practices, Marketing Services and Technology Services, where we keep an eye on what's happening in content and data and digital media as well. The macro environment continues to be challenging increasingly as a result of U.S. imposed tariffs and the significant volatility as a result and uncertainty in global economic policy, which remains. We may not remain -- may maintain our targets for the year on a constant currency basis, with the 2025 net revenue and operational EBITDA are expected to be similar to 2024, with an expected improvement in the second half, with greater weighting than last year, but as usual and phasing of new business activity, particularly around General Motors, around Amazon and the key TM client that Scott referred to. The 2025 net debt target range is GBP 100 million to GBP 140 million versus GBP 150 million to GBP 190 million last year, with a medium-term leverage objective of 1.5x EBITDA. We maintain our focus on margin improvement through greater efficiency, greater utilization, billability, very improved billability and pricing. And we continue to capitalize on our prominent AI positioning and are seeing multiple initial AI-related assignments in new business. And we're starting to leverage AI technology in ways that Scott has referred to and as you inferred to in the RNS. We remain confident in our strategy in our business model and in our talent, which, together with scaled client relationships, we believe, positions us well -- or very well in the long term. So with that as background, we're open for questions.

[Operator Instructions] And up first, we have Laura Metayer from Morgan Stanley.

Two questions, please. You've mentioned new business that they will contribute to H2 growth. Are you able to give us a sense of how much you expect new business wins to contribute to growth for the year? And then secondly, can you help us understand the trajectory of growth for the year? Is it sensible to assume that you will return to positive growth from Q2 onwards for the rest of the year? And how much visibility do you have into the year? So for example, what proportion of revenue is already locked in?

Thanks very much for the questions. I'll just say that what we're seeing is a pattern of growth in the like-for-like growth in Q3 and Q4. So that's the pattern that we see. We've highlighted the General Motors win, which started in July of last year. The biggest brand of the 4 that we're working on started at the beginning of April. So we'll start to impact Q2, but the major impact of that will be in Q3 and Q4. The Amazon expansion will be -- again, will kick in mainly in Q3 and Q4. And the TMT win, which referred to growth in time, will kick in again in Q3 and Q4. So the pattern is very much skewed to the second half of the year, as Mary highlighted and Scott highlighted in their remarks. The pattern is as usual, but perhaps more weighted to Q3 and Q4 than we've seen in previous years. Do you want to add anything to that, Mary?

No.

For Scott, anything?

No, no.

Does that answer what you need there?

Yes, sure. And do you -- is it sensible to expect that Q2 like-for-like growth will be positive? Or is it too soon and then...

No. We expect positive growth in Q3 and Q4. You have to say -- I have to say just to key that into the remarks and the statement on tariffs. I mean, if you ask me what is likely, it's a bit foggy at the minute in terms of -- or not in the minute, I guess. The U.S. imposed tariffs have really been delayed, what was it, for 90 days. We're probably about 30 days through that. There's meant to be a major announcement, 10:00 American time, which looks as though it's a U.S.-U.K. trade agreement that may lift some of the fog. We have the Chinese negotiations starting in Switzerland over the weekend with the U.S. Whether that will bear any fruit, and you will have to see. But I think it's going to take certainly 60, 90, 120 days. So you could say Q2 and Q3, I'm talking generally for the U.S. imposed tariffs to sort out and to see what the baseline is. I said that it's foggy. It's very difficult for clients. I would say we haven't seen cuts. We've seen, I think, 2 cases where there were sort of stops on projects, not significant, quite small. And in one case, reinstatement pretty quickly after. So very little impact, noticeable impact. But I would say there's a general level of uncertainty amongst clients, which is totally understandable. It's very difficult to run a manufacturing business that makes real things as opposed to provide services in this sort of environment. And you've seen companies give multiple guidance. In the case of United Airlines, I think they gave 2 levels of guidance. In some cases, like Ford, they've dropped guidance totally. So it's a very, very -- I don't think we've seen a situation like this. The disruption cause is considerable, but it will take time for it to be sorted out. I would guess that to be the next 60, 90, 120 days. After that, as we say in the statement, I think the fog will clear, at least we'll know where we are and the baselines are in terms of tariffs. And I think clients in a slower growth, higher inflation because tariffs are inflationary at least one time, and we don't know what the permanent effects will be, and where interest rates, although they may come down, we'll probably be higher than they have been historically. In that world, efficiency, there will be a premium on where you do business, the markets where there's growth. And we think that's North and South America, the Middle East and Asia Pacific, with a big question mark over Europe, with the exception maybe of Germany because of the defense and fiscal expansion there. But the other part of it will be improved efficiency, and that's where we think AI will kick in considerably. We've referred in the statement to the changes in technology, specifically the technologies that we're using around new commercial production, and the reduction in time and the reduction in cost significantly increases the return on investment on marketing programs. And we think the -- this post -- this period of tariff disruption, there will be a premium on efficiency and cost management. And the return on investment will improve considerably by using these new techniques. We're already starting to see it, and clients are becoming, I would say, quite excited about how these techniques can be implemented to improve efficiency and reduce -- create costs and production costs and improve the opportunities for immediate deployment. So I think that's the pattern, but it is underlying, it is pretty foggy at the minute.

And our next question now comes from Julien Roch from Barclays.

Yes. I'll start with first some number questions, and then I'll ask a question on AI. So on your net sales guidance is for broadly similar, but that's at constant currency. So indication of the impact of FX for the full year if rates stay the same. And then you gave guidance for a lot of items, but you didn't give us indication for depreciation, interest and tax rate. So that's for numbers. And then on AI, Martin, you just partially answered, but what is the actual impact on your business today? Are clients paying less to the same or same for more? Because you just mentioned that AI will be implemented to increase efficiencies from the client standpoint, which would -- could be interpreted as less revenue for you and an impact on margin. It looks like there's no impact for the time being because you're guiding on net sales and EBITDA to be probably the same, which would imply no efficiency from AI on your part. So if we could get some like concrete pleasure on AI and the impact of the business kind of today or this year.

Sure. Mary, do you want to deal with the numbers...

Yes, of course. Julien, so we would say FX impact, so from a full year perspective, the impact of the movement of about $0.01 on the dollar would be roughly GBP 4 million on net revenue and around GBP 1.2 million on EBITDA. In terms of depreciation, interest and tax rates, they all remain consistent with the guidance given at the full year. So no change for those.

Did that cover what you wanted there, Julien, and the response to that?

Yes. No, it's all good on numbers. On AI?

Yes, sure. So I mean, just following up on what I said, I mean, we're starting to see the development of new commercial models. And we've referred before to the fact that agencies have tended historically to be paid on the basis of time. And as you point out, and as we pointed out in the statement, there will be a reduction in time. And therefore, you have to now start to develop models that are based on outputs, and that's what we're doing. So some of the relationships that we've referred to in the statement, we're now working obviously on retainers and on compensation for FTEs employed. But in addition, we are working on the basis of assets or outputs delivered. And so for example, in the case of high personalization at scale, where the scale of what we're doing is multiplied, it was big before, but it's even bigger now in terms of number of assets deployed and the number of assets used. Whilst the price per asset might fall, which as you're pointing out, the number of assets grows at an exponential rate. And therefore, total revenues will rise. For us as a disruptor, these are more opportunities. So we're starting to penetrate relationships where there are opportunities to develop revenue streams that we haven't been exposed to before, with clients and parts of their business that we haven't been exposed to before. I mean, JB, do you want to talk a little bit about what we're doing on pricing, billability and utilization, which I think is at the heart of Julien's question as well?

Yes, so very much. So we continue to work on maximizing our resource pool to make sure that we address our cost base from a personal cost, but also from an indirect cost. We continue to align our resource profile to our revenue mix, and we are very proactive in making sure that our personnel costs continue to improve as a percentage of net revenue. In terms of billing and pricing, we obviously are working quite proactively in making sure that we price accordingly based on the work we do. With AI coming into play, as Martin said, we are evolving our pricing and commercial models to reflect the type of work we do and the type of impact we make with our clients, and that will continue to evolve. We are also looking at our client profitability profile and understand which client, which projects deliver the right level of profitability versus the ones that are not delivering the right threshold and addressing that as well. So we are addressing a number of topics around productivity and profitability.

I think, just to underline, Julien, I think you're right in the inference. The agency model is going to have to change, given the technological changes, which we've highlighted, particularly in relation to commercial production. I mean, some of the results that we're seeing are quite extraordinary in terms of reduction in time and reduction in cost. And the quality is extremely high, and the quality is improving, as we said in the statement, in real time, but you could even say it at light speed. So we are seeing significant improvements in quality. I mean, if we showed you the Puma work that we're doing, we've got other work which is confidential at the minute, where the quality dimension has been improved considerably in literally in 2 to 3 months. And we expect with the development and models that we referred to in the statement, for example, Runway and at Adobe and elsewhere, the improvements that we're seeing are extremely rapid, and we think the technology will improve even more effectively. This is going to radically change the way the clients do their marketing. And I think the -- we refer continuously to the General Motors model, that model of sort of upper funnel, strategic and mid- and low funnel, foundational, we think, is probably the way things are going to go given the developments in technology. Does that get to the heart of what you were asking about?

Yes, somewhat. But if we take maybe a concrete example this year of the client where, as you said, is on the basis of time you would pay less, you're trying to evolve on output. Do you have an actual example of an existing client where as a consequences of that revenue has either gone down or is flat or is up and margins are something concrete? And then on the basis of what you just said where the price of assets will fall, but the number of assets going -- will go up, do you feel that with the same client, not winning new business and taking share from holding, but just on a kind of really like-for-like basis, do you think AI will result in lower revenues, same revenue, higher revenue?

Well, the best example that we have, I think, for ourselves and indeed in the industry will be General Motors. I mean, here you've got 4 strategic agencies actually happened to be independents or small holding company. And you've got a foundational agency. I don't know what the historic cost was there. But my guess would be that the historic cost was considerably higher than the current cost. And the model is being adapted or is being adapted at scale extremely effectively. In that case, we have no relationship prior to the implementation of the new model. And we have an extension of the relationship, which is building not just in the U.S., but internationally as well. So I think that's the best example. I mean, it comes back a little bit to what we're seeing generally. My view is that type of model will be more extensively deployed by other clients as we work through, let's call it, the tariff cycle or the tariff situation. Once the fog is cleared on that, then I think people will start to deploy models. The 2 industries where we've seen most impact so far would be autos and financial services. And in both cases, in the case of auto, it's EVs and AVs that are coming. BYD pre-tariff could produce an AV God's Eye car at $10,000 and that's huge competition for the established manufacturers. In the case of fintech, new bank, let's say, in Brazil and South America, where a lot of banks -- or a number of banks make considerable profitability certainly more than they do in Europe, what the fintechs are much more adaptable, lower price. In both cases, established auto companies and financial services companies are reducing their create costs in order to be able to deploy the same amount of media -- the same amount of money in media or more. So I think what you see, and that's a big opportunity for us as a disruptor on the creative side to expand our share and model. And I think it's a challenge, obviously, to the established companies. I mean, it's a bit like we see going on in the media between free-to-air and digital. So it's really redeploying the model or developing a new model in that situation. But I think efficiency to your question, efficiency is going to become paramount post implementation of tariffs, even more so than it was before.

Okay. I mean, I guess that -- I get that GM is the best example, but it's more we -- more you winning business from the whole...

No, no, no. II don't think it's right, Julien. It's -- what's going on there, it's a strategic view that a new model is needed. It's not about us winning business. It's about somebody making a decision, a CEO, a CMO making a decision that in order to cope with a new market environment, that they have to change their model. And I think I've referred to 2 industries, in particularly autos and financial services, but I think we see that increasingly becoming the challenge. And in the world -- as I said, in a slow growth world, I think that approach is going to become an approach that demands a premium of effort and deployment.

Last attempt. So for one of your existing clients, is there an existing client where you've moved from a "old model" to a "new model? And what's the impact on revenue for an existing client, not for an account win?

Well, I think there are many examples where people are experimenting, I was going to use the word tinkering, but experimenting -- I mean, the usual approach on AI deployment currently has been workshops, audits, pick off. And without naming names, I mean, I think it will be pharmaceutical client at the moment where we had a small relationship, and it's expanding on the back of AI deployment. I wouldn't describe that as tinkering. But it's a little bit more active. Tech clients are certainly deploying AI technology in their activities. On the tech side, they're deploying more money to CapEx. The interesting thing is maybe with the exception of Microsoft, which I think has reduced its CapEx, the others such as Google, Amazon is spending GBP 100 billion a year on CapEx for AI. Google is up at about EUR 75 billion. I think Meta is now at GBP 75 billion. So the mega 7 or mega 5, or whatever you want to call it, are continuing to deploy huge amounts of money on capital expenditure, despite DeepSeek, despite people suggesting that you don't have to build these data warehouses and make these data investments at that scale. So that continues. And we're seeing people move money into CapEx from OpEx, including marketing and use AI, I would say, at the margin. But in terms of fundamental change, there are a few examples as yet. I think that will come, as I say, the fog around tariffs clears. Do you want to add anything, Scott, to that or no?

Yes, I get the gist of your question, Julien. I think the challenges -- firstly, none of our clients stand still, right? So there's always increases, decreases in scope. There's new business, et cetera. They have new objectives each year. So it's quite hard to look at something completely apple-to-apple. I think the other challenge, as Martin just said, is that there's a lot of talk around AI, but at this stage, there aren't that many clients that have really fully embraced it and completely changed their model. So it's quite hard. We have plenty of clients that are starting to use it, and they're seeing great results on efficiencies, in terms of speed to market and the amount of assets that can be created. So far, most of those clients are just using that to do more. So there's limited impact that you can see from a revenue perspective, and it's -- from a margin perspective, there's limited impact as well. That said, I get your point. I think if you fast forward 3 to 5 years when all clients have fully adapted and adopted AI, then I can understand there would be pressure on the overall kind of revenue pie in the industry because there will certainly be some clients that look at it from a purely cost perspective, There'll be others that look at it from a, "We can do more perspective." And there'll be also some that look at it, "We should be investing more on this." But I think overall, there could certainly be pressure on the top line. From a margin perspective, I think, less so. I think, if anything, there are margin improvement opportunities. But obviously, we can't take all the efficiencies because clients will want to share those, but there probably are margin improvement opportunities. And also the work that JB is doing, which is not the client kind of facing adoption of AI, but more the internal adoption of AI for our own systems and processes, should be able to create margin improvement over time as well.

And up next, we have a question from Steve Liechti from Deutsche Numis.

I will just ask the one by one, just to keep it simple. So first question is on Marketing Services in the first quarter, the like-for-like minus 7.5%, that feels kind of a step-down compared to the fourth quarter of last year. Can you give us any kind of color there? What was -- what were the moving parts there? Was content particularly bad, DDM worse than expected? Just any color there, please, first of all.

Yes. I think DDM was stronger. I mean, if you're looking at the way that we used to divide the business, DDM was stronger than content in the first quarter. It was more stable. That pattern will change as we go through Q3 and Q4. I think content will get relatively stronger. So the balance there was more in relation to DDM being stronger than content.

But in no particular sort of step change or whatever.

No, no. Just the general environment.

Yes. Okay. And I hear what you're saying on tech clients and all the CapEx they're putting in. I guess, the message that we heard from other agencies was tech clients have stabilized spending. And I think WPP in the first quarter said their tech client were up 4.5% and Publicis up plus 1%. So it feels like you're giving a slightly different message there. Any views?

No. That's the message we're giving. Your interpretation of it is correct. So we did not see tech clients. I mean, I think on published data -- on Google, published data in Q1...

The sales and marketing expenditures, they're still negative in Q1.

They were off about 5%, was it?

Yes. Google was off 5%, which obviously...

That's what they declare in their P&L. Of course, there's a number of -- it's not just pure agency costs in there. It's obviously media costs and, I would say, experiential and other stuff as well. But if you take it as a general -- I think they're the only -- what about Meta in Q1?

Around flat.

Meta was flat in Q1. So -- which probably of the tech companies are the one that was most aggressive in cutting spend over the last couple of years. So we've not seen -- to some extent, Steve, it would depend on how you're defining tech. I mean, if you include maybe telecommunication...

Yes, I think some of our competitors say tech, but it's actually TMT.

Yes. So I think we have to be a little careful on that. Obviously, in our case, Amazon, although it's probably the biggest spender on CapEx, we're making progress there. So that would be against that trend.

Okay. Cool. And I guess taking that actually, just in terms of the new big wins that you're referring to. So if you take collectively GM, which let's call it a whopper, and your definition of a whopper is $20 million, let's say, so that's one whopper. A TMT client, is that an existing client? But you're saying it's going to double revenue, so that's equivalent to another whopper, which is another $20 million. And then is it fair to assume that the Amazon increase spend that you're talking about is equivalent to enough whopper? So call it pro forma $60 million of incremental revenue this year. I know GM started a bit in the second half of last year. So let's just say a pro forma, is that the way to think about it, $60 million of incremental new business, just for those 3 lumps?

I think Amazon, you're probably overestimating, but the other 2 would be consistent. Yes, go on.

No, that's fine. So that's about just...

No, no. That would be fair, that would be fair.

On an annualized basis, yes.

That would be fair, that would be fair.

Okay. And then just on Tech Service. So the Tech Service segment itself, I know you've got the big client that's falling out there. But if you exclude the big clients falling out, is the underlying Tech Services business still going down? Or has that stabilized now on an underlying basis, as I think about how we're working through once the big client drops out?

It's not gone up. I think we are seeing some signs of stabilization there. And again, I think that we didn't highlight in the -- that in the statement. But if we see the pipeline on Tech Services starting to improve in Q3 and Q4, and that's -- we're -- we've made some changes in terms of sales organization and people. We brought in some talent from BPO organizations, and we referred to Wipro, I think, on the previous call. And we're starting to see some improvements in the pipeline there. So again, that's another -- in terms of -- in our forecasting where Q3 and Q4 become more important.

[Operator Instructions] We now move on to a question from Adi Arya from Arini.

Can you hear me okay?

Yes, fine.

Great. My first question is, would you just be able to guide for the like-for-like change in the U.S., excluding Tech Services? Because, obviously, that would have been a drag on that 10.5%. So ex Tech Services, what does that look like? And then also, why was EMEA so weak? I think it hasn't been that weak historically, and this wouldn't have had that kind of First American impact.

Yes. I think EMEA had a strong quarter -- first quarter last year, and the pipeline improves as we get through actually into Q2 and beyond. So I think that on the U.S., we don't give a figure for the U.S. ex Tech Services, but the inference to your question is correct is that Tech Services would have been a "drag" on the U.S. So the U.S. performance ex Tech Services, which is about 10% of the business globally, it's more obviously in the context of the U.S. would have been a drag on it.

Got it. I mean, just to check directionally, can I say it's between 0% to 5% decline ex Tech Services? Is that the rough range? Or more flat?

I don't know offhand, but you can do what you like.

Okay. And then I think just to understand that, I think what -- a lot -- a number of your peers actually have also, from my understanding, have shown this trend where content, at least at the start of this year, has been lagging kind of media. Would you say that -- it's interesting you mentioned content. So I'm assuming maybe a lot of that Marketing Service decline is content driven with, as you said, media being flat. It's interesting you say content will pick up because my understanding was that maybe the industry is just -- in terms of output and asset-based remuneration, I thought the industry is just shifting more towards kind of media and content.

No, I don't...

And I think that created the revenue base as lower.

No, I don't think that's right. I think the -- when you refer to content, I think you've got to refer to sort of old content and new content. I think the content that you're referring to the agencies or agency HoldCos you referred to is creative content around free-to-air or traditional media, particularly television. So globally, that's a $300 billion industry that's declining if you don't have live sport by 10% to 15% a year, if you do have live sport 0% to 5% a year. And then the new content is around the digital industry, which is the other $700 billion, which is growing even now. I mean, we get the commentary overnight about what's happening with search and Google and Apple, but putting that stuff to one side for a minute, if you look at Q1 for the TechCos, ad revenues are up about 10%. So the digital piece at $700 billion continues to grow at 10%. So I think, probably -- analytically, it's probably best to think about it as 2 industries. Unfortunately, in conversations like these and elsewhere, it gets lumped in as 1 industry. There are 2 industries that work here. One is a traditional industry that's in decline, and one is a digital industry, which is growing. The content around the traditional industry is under huge pressure for which I think you're referring. What we're referring to is content around a new industry that continues to grow. But going back to Julien's question, where the model is changing and where the economics are changing because the technology enables you to do things at scale at lower cost. And in the world in which we're now operating, which I think is slower growth and higher inflation and higher interest costs, efficiency is going to be paramount. So getting the most out of your create budgets, I mean, one client, for example, who spends -- one of our clients spends $4 billion a year has create costs of over $400 million. And they don't think their create costs should be -- and they do traditional and digital. They don't think their create cost should be more -- should be 10% of their media cost. They should be significantly lower, maybe 7.5% or even 5%. The new technologies will enable them to do that, create content at scale efficiently and effectively. The block up until now has been the quality you've seen the Will Smith spaghetti test that we do, which shows the improvement in quality of producing creative. So I think that's what's happening. And again, going back to Julien's question -- or questions, the question for us is, can we develop the model, the revenue model that copes with that. We don't have a traditional agency, rather like a newspaper company, which has been felling trees and delivering newsprint, we don't have that, right? We're a new -- a newer disruptive model. So we don't have the drag of that. So we're free of that drag, that sort of anchor. And therefore, we're more flexible. The question for us is, can we develop the model in an effective way. And I think what you're referring to is old -- what I would call old creative. I'm referring to new creative.

Got it. And then just an example, obviously, it sounds like that new creative, as you say, the tech guys report is like your TikTok Reels, your YouTube ads, that kind of stuff, right, on digital.

Social, well, it's broader than that, but broadly, yes.

Okay. And just a couple more. Just on personnel costs, obviously, I think you did show an improvement last year, and that will run rate to this year. If I just take the kind of 76.2% as a percent of revenue last year, can you just guide roughly what you're targeting in 2025 on that personnel cost?

Well, we're targeting lower for 2025, but the guideline is 65%. Fully loaded bonus pools, the staff cost to revenue ratio -- or the staff cost to net revenue ratio should be about 65%. So there's about a 10-point improvement that we're aiming for long to medium term. But that's not the objective for this year. Our budgets are not drawn at 65%. But to what you're pointing to, if you're saying to me, what do we think internally it should be, it should be 65%.

That's a meaningful reduction in headcount, obviously, because, I mean, I think...

Well, that depends. That's not quite true. It depends on what happens with the revenue. So when we refer to pricing issues or the sort of stuff that Jean-Benoit is looking at on billability and utilization and pricing, that's effectively what we're referring to. We're talking about better deployment of our 7,000 people in 33 countries.

Got it. And last one for me, and it's very helpful. The GM contract win, it's definitely helpful to know that's going to ramp up as discussed in H2. There's just one thing that stood out to me is the -- you announced the contract, and obviously, that's a big positive. It's going to ramp up. But then have you not seen cautiousness from them, especially given it's a client in the auto sector, there's tariffs and they themselves will now be more incrementally more cautious on their OpEx spend, on their marketing spend? So when you see kind of headlines like that evolve, do you not bend and look more cautiously at this new contract win and think how will they actually spend more on advertising?

Well, I think you're right in directionally, but without referring to a specific client for a minute, if you think about the auto industry, which are the companies that are more affected? First of all, GM is primarily a U.S. truck and car company. I mean, it does have international operations, but essentially, it's very U.S. focused. Not -- I think Ford Motor Company is even more so. The people that are most affected by the tariffs are not the domestic U.S. manufacturers. In fact, you could argue it's the opposite relatively in their cases. The people who are most affected by the tariffs are those companies that export into the U.S. or export in from Mexico, which Ford and GM do some. So directionally, you're right, but relatively, it's not necessarily the case. So when I referred to 1 or 2 examples where tariff -- where we've seen tariffs specifically affect things, it would be the sort of thing you're talking about where tariffs have immediately had an impact. But generally, I would say we've not seen cuts in spending because of the tariffs as yet. What I think we've seen is, I refer to it being foggy, people delaying making decisions. Because if you put yourself in their position, I sat in a room in America recently where when we're in the room, tariffs on Canada went from 25% to 50% and back to 25% in a day. So it's a very uncertain environment. And we'll hear later today what's happening in the case of the U.S. and the U.K. from what we've heard. You saw the deal between the U.K. and India. So we are starting to see tariff agreements change the nature. So that has to sort out first. What I would say is we've seen very few cancellations. I can think of only 2 cases, and they're small. And in one case, that was reversed pretty quickly. So it's only really one where we've seen across our whole business where people specifically have said its relation to tariffs. That doesn't mean, by the way, that people haven't made decisions without us knowing in other areas. But basically, it would be wrong to assume that the underlying assumption of your question may be wrong if you think about the companies, where they're located, how they operate, what they depend on.

Really helpful. And I note that your billings actually increased on a lower revenue base. I think that was also interesting. So the clients of yours that are spending have spent a bit more.

Well, to some extent, that's a reflection of small and medium-sized businesses. So our media operations tend to be focused not on large enterprise, but more on the mid-market and smaller part of the market, but that's -- that explains that, too. Okay. I think that's -- I'm told there are no more questions. Thank you for the questions. We have another call at 1:00 London time, mainly for the U.S. So thank you for joining us. We'll see you after Q2. Thank you very much.