The Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc. (IPG) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Great. Thanks, everyone, for dialing into our inaugral TMT Conference. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Ben Black, I'm on of the media analysts here at Evercore ISI. And in this session, we're really excited to have Philippe Krakowsky, Interpublic Group CEO; and Ellen Johnson, the CFO. So actually, the full lineup really is just -- thank you both for your time.

Good morning, Ben.

Good to be here.

Thank you. Before I forget, anyone on the line who wants to ask a question, please use the question box on your portal. And if we have time at the end, I'll try to ask 1 or 2 of those.

All right. So with that out of the way, Philippe, you have been in the CEO seat for about 5 now, 5 to 6 months, obviously, been in the company much longer than that, but what have been some of the biggest changes from your prior role? Some of the biggest challenges? And what are your top strategic priorities, as we started to sort of emerge from the pandemic, of the next 12 to 18 months? And Ellen, I know you've been in your seat, it's much longer, but perhaps also for you, the same question, from the CFO's perspective.

It's funny because actually, you've kind of laid it out there whether you think about it as the 6 months in isolation or in the context of about 20 years with the company. Ellen's been, I think, at IPG is just a tad longer. So I think we come into the roles with a good fortune of having to work really closely with a lot of the leaders inside the group. And then we also partnered up in our Mediabrands, which is our media operations for a number of years. And that's why there's the greatest focus, I think, on incorporating technology and data into the core business. So a lot of the really dynamic things that are happening in the sector are happening inside of that business. So I think that we bring to the table a lot of continuity. And then I think kind of macro observation, just for folks who might not know is, I ran talent and strategy for the group for many, many years, right? So at a macro strategic level, we're building on probably 2 foundational bets that we made in the past. First, going back about a decade ago, we decided to embed digital skill sets across the portfolio and move to solve for what I'd call a more consultative kind of approach to solving client business issues that were created by the complexity of digital media. And that's been an evolution of the business. And then second, we're building on a much more recent investment in data and tech capabilities and infrastructure, which began before the big acquisition we did a number of years ago, which is Acxiom, that's accelerated significantly as a result of that investment, right? So we think about we steer the company for a lot of ups and downs, a broad range of business conditions. We positioned it for this period where there's been a lot of change. And so there's going to be kind of a strategic priorities that come into the what stays the same bucket as it were. And then, where we lean into -- a what are more forceful in driving towards. So I'd say that on the state, of course, again, very macro level. We're a professional services business. We have to see everything we do through the eyes of the client. So client-centric approach to solving what used to be marketing problems and opportunities for clients that are now I think a broader range of business challenges. Talent, we're in a business where clearly, talent is a big differentiator for us. And so what used to be creative strategic marketing services skill sets, we're now adding technology, e-com, data skill sets. So that breadth is something that's going to be a big part of our strategic focus. And the place where comes into the group, the on-boarding happens inside of our agency brands themselves. So culturally, we value and reward talent ideas, and we have these strong agency brands. Then another thing we carry forward is with those agency brands, they have to collaborate effectively. And we've called that at IPG for many years, we've called that Open Architecture. And it's that sense of being the sort of -- the systems integrator for our clients in these areas where we're expert. So that's a place where our culture, continuity, it's a strength that continues to be a strength for us. And then if you sort of move to the newer areas, and it's more about emphasis and speed, it's tools to help clients succeed. We were chatting earlier before we all came on, you were talking about everybody who wants to be in the TMT space. And so it's just, I think how do you help clients succeed given that the economy is just becoming more and more digital all the time. And it's those shifts that we've made over the last 3 or 4 years, have helped us outperform, have been accelerated by the pandemic, right? And so we were anticipating some of these shifts. So we continue to prioritize the data and technology layer that we've been building that informs everything we do. And iteratively, I think it improves everything we do. Because what you want in our space is to help clients be more precise and more relevant and more accountable with all of the interactions that they have and all the engagement and outreach that they make to consumers. So that data and tech layer is like the GPS for the company so that we can help clients make decisions that drive their growth agenda. And then as these channels are becoming more precise and more addressable. We lean into understanding audiences at a very granular level. So we call it sort of a high-value audience approach, audience leg in every we do. because that's how you get personalization of messages, that's how you get richer experiences. And you're talking about clients who make these very significant investments with their media budgets. And what you want is increasingly actually of course, efficiency, but really, effectiveness to turn that investment into a growth driver. And the last thing that I'll talk about that's, I think, kind of operational, is just the growing importance of data and privacy, right? So for every company, knowing that you're navigating all of this complexity, you're connecting with consumers in a way that's going to drive your business but you're doing that in the right way. And so that's clearly a differentiator. So strategically, the big challenges are you take the things we stood for going back a long ways, excellence and creativity and marketing services, connect that up to tech and data, get the balance right. And that becomes really -- a really powerful kind of differentiator or proposition for us. And then the last element, I think, given again that we're in a talent business is the importance of ESG. So for us, the work we do has visibility and impact kind of around the world. And so the need for our culture to live up to sub standards were the core is an understanding that you respect individuals and you try to contribute to the broader community. So equity and inclusion, a big priority for us. Going back, our prior CEO set that as a core priority a decade ago. And so we both -- our company's financially accountable for progress in that regard. We're now approaching data with an eye to de biasing, the data sets we use in our work with Acxiom. And then a bit later this week, we're going to announce some very focused plans and targets around climate change. And then that expectation that individuals control their own data and that when you activate a digital platforms, you have to do so responsibly. So that's the very macro view. And then I think the thing I'd hand over to Ellen, there's a lot of continuity in terms of how we manage the business, and think about -- and our discipline around costs, around the financial infrastructure of the company, around capital allocation. So why don't I just pass the baton and have Ellen take us through that.

Thank you. As we mentioned, I've been with IPG for about 21 years. And previously, in addition to partnering with the league at Mediabrands, I was Treasurer and Financial Planning and Analysis & M&A. So things that I have been focused on continue, right? And that is driving the financial performance of the company. And a lot of the things that Philippe just mentioned really give us the opportunity to do just that, right? We. We can continue the strong organic revenue growth that we have delivered over the last several years. But some of the newer areas where we're investing more in technology and data really allow us to continue to diversify our revenue venue streams as we move up into the clients and do more strategic things for them. And that allows us to get paid in different ways. As things become more effective, it allows us to get paid more for performance. We also have the ability to license our technology. And in addition to that, at a service model, if the clients like. So all is very, very positive from a revenue perspective. From a cost perspective, if you look back at last year, and we really said all along that in addition to making sure our people were safe, we were going to use it as an opportunity to really make sure we emerge stronger, and we did a large restructuring, which you're all aware of, where we reduced our real estate footprint by 15% and really took out several layers of management and look for opportunities to nearshore and offshore, all of which will generate significant permanent savings. And we've estimated that on an annual basis of $160 million. So we're feeling really good about that. And in addition to that, I mean, if you just look at our track record, we have the history of being able to convert revenue growth to margin profitably. So that is something we will continue to be extremely disciplined on and I think there are learnings from the pandemic of how we can use technology more to potentially travel less, use the offices differently. I think the office will remain a very important place, but will become more of a business tool and that will allow us to become more efficient as well. So all those things together should continue to drive enhanced margins and drive the financial performance that we've come to expect from us, and we feel like we can continue to deliver on. If you look at our balance sheet, that has always been something that's been important to us, that was strong balance sheet. That was strong balance sheet. That continues, investment-grade ratings. We like our ratings. We want to keep that. But within that context, we've also valued capital return. We've held the dividend even through last year and have increased it almost, I believe, every year since we instituted that. And we plan to continue to do that. And we have a -- we took the opportunity earlier this year to extend our debt maturities. And in 20 years, and we have a debt payment on October this year, $500 million, which we'll be paying down with cash. And soon after that, we will look towards the opportunity to get into back into share repurchases because we believe in a balanced return to capital program. And then lastly, in addition to fully set of ESG, the other thing, which we're really focused on is making sure our disclosures in that area are very clear and transparent. So we give our investors and all of the other interested stakeholders that we have, will purview into the programs that we're doing and the things that are important to us.

All right. Excellent. Those are very thorough responses. Perhaps a follow up, starting with the pandemic. So COVID has obviously impacted brick-and-mortar and the brick-and-mortar retail channel over the last year. There's certainly been a significant acceleration towards digital advertising, towards e-commerce. The question here, I guess, is how has that impacted the services that your clients are demanding? And what are some of the ways in which you're adopting to these new trends? And perhaps relatedly, it will be great to get point on which one of your agents is -- are having real momentum within digital advertising or within e-commerce?

Well, it's interesting because, I mean, that's a terrific question, and it's a very apt observation that it's a long -- a function of has the pandemic accelerated these things by x number of years. It's just we knew that these were coming. They're now clearly upon us and they're moving faster. And we've been preparing for a lot of that and putting a lot of the skill sets in the infrastructure in place to address it. I would sort of separate e-com perhaps from digital marketing, if only in that -- it happens in different places in our world. And so e-com specifically, as you said, it's been interesting because last year, even companies for whom it was well down the list of things that they needed to address, say, for example, a CPG company or perhaps even a health and wellness company where there were other avenues for distribution and a sense that it was something that was going to have to be solved in time. We're coming to us with quite immediate and urgent needs around pivoting their business and solving problems, right? And so I think what you sort of see is that there's a lot going on in terms of how do I transform my business, go online or go to a model where a meaningful number of my transactions are taking place there. And so there's a strategy piece, sort of a front-end thinking through whether it's the business model itself, the consumer journey, et cetera. And for us, we've got the capability sets to do that at a number of our agencies. So you were sort of saying kind of with some degree of specificity, whether that's an MRM, whether that's a huge, whether that's an RGA, but also at some of the larger integrated groups in McCann. And for example, there's clearly the capacity to solve the strategic piece. Then you've got sort of the design of the manifestation of the business online, where, again, some of the agencies I mentioned and probably a broader set because you're sort of -- you're solving for some of the same kinds of marketing priorities that you would have across other channels, but then where it becomes interesting is in terms of platform strategy and implementation, right? And so that's a place where, say, in MRM, which has hundreds and hundreds of very skilled employees who are certified across all the MarTech platforms. That's where they can engage very, very deeply with clients and help them with quite complex implementations and then continue to be global as well. And then lastly, media play has a really important role in this, right? And so whether it's your social platforms that have become not only a place where consumers are exchanging information and projecting and sort of sharing, but where recommendations happen, where reviews happen, et cetera. So you need to understand that space quite well, which are some of the agencies I mentioned, but also, say, a Weber Shandwick, which is our large PR firm that had sort of pivoted heavily into digital a few years ago. But perhaps most importantly, how does all that then intersect with what the client is doing in media? So for us, that's, again, inside of media brands, Reprise Media, which has a very strong e-com capability that it's been building because you need to understand when the consumer is past the point where you've built the sort of the shop window and you've gotten their attention or understood why they're there, you're really in the consideration set. And so how does the money that's being invested in media intersect with all of this activity? So for us, it's probably the digital agencies and MRM and then Reprise with an underlay of some of our other agencies depending because as I said to you, so much of what we do now for clients is sort of being the GC on all of the marketing needs. So you see some of our ad agencies involved some of our peer agencies involved as well, but it's definitely -- it comes up in every conversation with clients. I mean, that's why it was your first question, I assume.

Right. And then perhaps just more broadly, you spoke about how you've adapted the business model to sort of the digitization of the world. Curious to hear what the airplay is between IPG's agencies and the big digital ad platforms? Do you view them as clients, suppliers, maybe competitors? And how do you see that relationship evolving over the next few years?

What -- I guess it's sort of yes to most of the above. So as mentioned, when you embed digital into all of your agencies, you're clearly better able to help clients understand and pivot to a world where consumers are taking information on board, disseminating information, but actually interacting with a physical world through these devices, right? Because they're how we navigate the world, then they sort of become the way we mediate all of our experiences. So it actually applies to shopper marketing and physical activation and events when we get back to being able to do those, of course, sort of post-pandemic. And so the platforms are definitely -- they are partners as it were, I think, as any large media owner would be where perhaps the integration goes a bit deeper because we really have to understand the moment at which the technology and the platform is being used. And so we need to understand the formats as they evolve so we can do creative and put content into those formats. They are also clients. So they do come to us for advice as they're solving some of these problems. And then the competition piece, I think, it depends in that it really depends so much of what we do is very, very client-specific, sector-specific, use-case specific, that there are times when clients do use the platforms. For us, perhaps different than some of our competitors, we've always been very clear that in our media business, we're transparent, and we do not take inventory positions. And so that complexity is opportunity for us because it's a way to consult to clients on how they're going to thrive in those new platforms, but there is not everything we do interweaves with them. And then the traditional media owners, as you see kind of consolidation happening there, they're using the same playbook. They want to have more integrated digital play in whatever it is that they are bringing to market, and they want to have a better and a deeper understanding of their audiences. So I think that you're just going to see more and more of that.

Right. And I guess, a little bit of a broader question here, too. But if you took a step back and built a scorecard and looked at revenue growth across at the holdco group, IPG has [ carry ] outperformed. I think there's no question there. You guys are taking some share within the ad agency market. What are some of the key successes there? And how do you expand your opportunities? So you're not just taking share, but also expanding beyond the traditional agency ecosystem.

I mean, look, I mean it's interesting because I think Ellen and I have sort of covered a bit of that in our very macro answers. I mean, as I said, I think we do believe that our culture and our focus on talent have been differentiators that have led to or have been contributors to our outperformance. So by having clarity around the skill sets and the strengths of the agencies, but not diluting those agencies by sort of combining them or pulling talent out of them for these bespoke solutions for clients. I think that has been a strength for us, right? And the agencies are aware, I think clients will engage and then we can cross sell, and it's definitely where talent wants to come in. It's sort of -- it's where talent gets onboarded into our systems. So I think that's a strength, I think, the focus on open architecture and collaboration, which also goes back a long ways. It is always is going to be work in progress, but it's a strength for us, and that has definitely fueled the performance. And then the focus on data going back again 4 or 5 years, but the meaningful uptake on that when we did the Acxiom transaction. So those are kind of what has led to it. And then Ellen was alluding to where we see the opportunity in a sense is that with the combination of those it takes us to places where we can have discussions with clients about kind of the addressable universe becomes broader for us. Whether that is talking to a client about their enterprise data strategy or whether it's talking to a client about how -- what you've done with activation and media as things become more addressable means that you can bring these quite sophisticated capabilities to more of your sort of marketing activity or more of the ways you engage with clients, so affiliate marketing, perhaps. You can start managing the portfolio and thinking about should the dollar go to an incentive, if I'm a big automotive OEM or should it go to a very targeted promotion. And then, as Ellen was saying, with more precision, more performance-based with that layer that we've built in between the tech and the rest of the company to activate, which is an applications layer, the IP has value. So there's lots of ways to approach what we think is, as Ellen was saying, a broader revenue opportunity.

And then speaking sort of the revenue opportunities, and I want to bring Ellen here as well. So looking at the 2021 trends, I think your guidance implies that 2021 net revenue could be in the range of 2019 levels. So the question here is, I guess, what gives you the confidence to potentially hit that target? And what are sort of the puts and takes that could potentially drive you higher or maybe lower?

Do you want me to start, Philippe?

Please.

Sure. So listen, if you look at the way the year began in February, right, at that point, we didn't feel we had enough visibility to put out expectations for the year. And then 2 months later, as you rightly point out, we said we expect to grow 5% to 6% for the year, right? And so what is that based on? That's based upon lots of conversations with clients, right? We're seeing very, very close to our operators. We are continuously talking to clients. And when we do a lot of bottoms-up forecasting all the time. So that's where we were able to get to as far as, and we feel really good about that. We think that everything from -- in a lot of major markets, but being sensitive to, it's not unanimous around the world, and there's still some places going through some pretty rough things, but if you look at like the major markets like the U.S. where vaccine rollouts are really starting to take hold, and we're getting some good percentages of people and things are really opening up, combined with the stimulus programs that are in effect, right, in the overall economy. It's leading us to feel really good about the year. So I think we're focused we have our heads down and are looking to deliver with clients. I think the other thing that the pandemic really helped with is when you go through a crisis, clients really turn to the people that are their strategic advisers, and they trust the most. And last year despite tragedies, we really did spend a lot of time even virtually talking to our clients and the relationships are that much deeper. So all of that put together makes us be able to deliver on our year.

I mean it's interesting. I think to Ellen's point, from early in the year where our sense was, we feel good about and confident in what we can control, but what we can't control is still enough of an overhang, and there's enough macro uncertainty and Ellen was saying from the outset, it's just a question of when is the growth available to us. I think conversations with clients clearly are quite consistently -- they're back into: a, an investment mindset; they're back into a sense of how do we engage and either take advantage of the fact that we've done well through the pandemic, and we want to keep that momentum going or get things restarted. And you saw that from Q4 into Q1, sequentially, in terms of whether it was regionally independent of, again, 1 or 2 markets that are just dealing with harrowing things at a human level. But regionally, but more importantly, on a sector basis, everything showed sequential improvement. So again, we're definitely -- nobody's declaring victory here, but we're definitely seeing signs that with the strong offerings we've got, that opportunity to go out and realize the growth has come back.

Right. And then perhaps on the pivoting to the cost side, you mentioned you've been even able to remove a lot of costs and expand margins. I think everyone was positive surprised by the '21 margin guidance. Is that level of margin sustainable? Or are there certain cost buckets that may return back in a post-COVID world?

The -- starting with the restructuring, right, we feel really good that those are permanent savings, right? I mean the things that we did were very strategic. They were very structural. So near shoring, offshoring, layers of management to make us more agile and then really taking the learnings from the pandemic and looking at our real estate footprint. So I'd say all those are permanent. I would look at, historically, our track record of being able to take revenue growth and convert it to profit margin in a very consistent and meaningful way. So you have the same management team, you have the same discipline. We expect that to continue. There will be some puts and takes, right, particularly as you comp the back half of this year, last year, we had salary cuts. We had furloughs. We had other things, which we don't have right now. And travel will come back and in-office expenses, to some degree. But all that being said, we feel confident in the ability, like I said, to convert revenue growth to profit. And so we also -- just going back to the high value services. The more that we can diversify our revenue stream, the more that can be accretive to margin. So I think that's another opportunity. It's important to keep in mind.

All right. And I was going to say, just looking a little bit further ahead, when you pair sort of the top line recovery with some of the more permanent cost savings, real estate, for instance, it'd be great to sort of hear your thoughts on the longer-term margin profile of the business, where could that potentially gravitate to?

Ellen, you were may -- I mean, it's just -- it's funny because I think that, again, one of the benefits of working very closely so last year, Ellen and her role, me as the COO. Then the restructuring was very strategic. So it was clearly done to Ellen's point, with an eye to nimbler, better able to work in the ways that we have to, given the nature of work these days. So to our mind, if you think about all of these moving parts and we are in a service business, so spending time with clients is important. And so there will be a return to travel because you want to spend time with people. And you also do, I think, benefit meaningfully when you're in an ideas business from having your people together. So it's still, I think, a bit of an unknown exactly where things will net out in terms of the role of the office as a tool, but it still means that you're going to have a material chunk of the population in office, and that's going to be kind of iterative. So I think we're going to start bringing out, and it will probably bleed into, at least, the first quarter, if not the first half of next year. But we see continued -- if you think about all the things that we're talking about and these new services, we understand, obviously, that you want to see both the growth and continued improvement in margin to then drive valuation. But from a resit, we think that there's still runway on the margin side in the business.

Excellent. And perhaps just going back to COVID. Slightly different angle, question ]. Has the pandemic changed sort of the duration of deals, the payment terms or the clients? Are there new opt out clauses, for instance? And then speaking of account reviews or renewals, is there anything you can share in terms of major upon renewals or any highlights from key wins or losses over the past few months?

I mean, it's interesting. I mean, Ellen, I don't know that either of us saw anything dramatic when it came to kind of contractual interactions with clients. I mean, I think, if anything, in the very early stage of the pandemic, where everybody was understandably wanting to be sure that they were in a strong cash position. It was probably a bit more challenging for media owners than for those of us who provide the kinds of services that we provide. So I don't think that I see anything there, Ellen. I mean, anything on the...

No. No, not really at all. Clients were focused like we were keeping their people city and keep their businesses going. So we really did not see pressure or any incremental pressure on the contractual terms.

And then in terms of the -- it's funny because there is this interesting expectation that -- and I think it's true that in the same way that to Ellen's point, everybody was very focused, sort of, on a maintenance and a get through the crisis, I think there was clearly a tick-down in terms of new business activity across the sector, right? And so people didn't want to add that level of disruption unless it was necessary. And we did have pitches, we did win quite a bit of business. We did it all virtually, which is kind of, to be honest, kind of weird, but we're starting to see an uptick. And my sense is that, that should continue, both because there are people -- there's some sort of demand that got sort of repressed during the course of these 15 months. But I think also some people are doing what you're asking, Ben, with your e-com acceleration question, they're sort of asking themselves, am I where I need to be? Do I have the best resources to solve, given that the world is coming very quickly around these kinds of issues? And so we're seeing quite a bit of pitch activity in the integrated space, where people are saying, can you come to us with a very comprehensive solution that solves for this higher level of complexity. We're definitely continuing to -- we're seeing continued a high level of activity in media because I think, as I said at the outset, that's the place where the data and the tech as either disruptors or if you've got the right assets, kind of differentiators has been ongoing. And then on a sort of more matter, of course, basis, I think we're seeing a fair bit of activity among the agencies, the more digital agencies in the portfolio. So we're seeing an uptick, but I think it will continue to pick up steam and probably last into next year.

Excellent. I know I'm running on time, but I want to get one more question in here, and it's -- you've integrated Acxiom. The question here is, do you see further opportunity to do bolt on M&A? What does the M&A market look like? How competitive it is out there? And do you really expect to be a net buyer or potentially a seller over the next 3 to 4 years? And perhaps more broadly, if you look out the next, call it, 12 to 18 months, what are the key capital allocation priorities there? Should we expect repurchases to resume in the near term? I know you mentioned it early on, but what are sort of the expectations around timing that?

What if Ellen talks about your very last question and then maybe valuations and M&A, and then I'll talk a little bit more broadly or strategically on the M&A side.

Sure. So I'll just start with capital allocation. Our share buybacks and which we did for many years, leading up to the Acxiom transaction. And the dividend, even withstanding the pandemic, we've consistently increased. So I think that shows you that capital allocation and return of capital to our shareholders is a priority. And we've been able to do that while we've still invested in the business, managed to keep the CapEx and every other take on our cash that we need. We have a very cash flow positive business. So that should continue, right? And as I mentioned, we have a debt paid down in October. The rating agencies have well changed their outlooks back to stable. So we value and we know our shareholders value capital return. So we will continue to make that a priority. And for tuck-in M&A, I mean, that was historically our practice. Acxiom was kind of an exception, right? So I think you'll go back and look at us doing tuck-in acquisitions where we can add to our talent and maybe just do things quicker and accelerate some of the pace in the faster-growing areas rather than big gaps.

I mean, look, we have always been believers that, as I said, if you see the digital sort of wave coming early, what you want to do is you want to bake those skill sets in each and every one of your companies because then their model evolves. We still believe that's largely the right way to go. So it's our -- I think to my mind, it will be a further evolution of the portfolio, where -- from where we sit at this point, there are no gaps, and there's nothing that, to Ellen's point, when we see something opportunistically or we want to very, very inverse specific way bolt-on, are focused, but the portfolio is in solid shape, we feel good about what we're taking to market. And then Acxiom was a moment in time where we were building those capabilities ourselves, and they were helping us succeed in the marketplace. And the question just became the rate at which the -- of speed there and then doing data management at scale in a way that's very secure, and that gives you a level of credibility with clients that then opens up this sort of whole new set of conversations or opportunities. It just felt like it would take us too long to get there, and there were relatively few assets out there that looked interesting. I don't see us in that position at this point. So I think you'll see us go back to that pattern, which we had in place for 15 years and which work pretty well for us.

Perfect. It looks like we're out of time. I had so many more questions to ask, but thank you so much, Philippe and Ellen, I really appreciate the insights that you provided. It looks like you have the wins -- the win in your sales. So good luck going forward. And thanks once again.

No, no. Thanks for having us.