Havas reports 11.5% growth despite higher staff costs
French holding company Havas Group, which owns agencies such as Rosa Paris and Gate One, has reported an 11.4% increase in organic growth for the first half of 2022. Havas parent company Vivendi reported its financial results today (July 28).
Havas has reported its financial results for the first half of 2022 / The Drum
Arnaud de Puyfontaine, chairman of Vivendi's management board, said that the group had seen “outstanding performance over the entire first half of 2022.”
Havas is the second largest unit in Vivendi’s business, after Canal+.
What do the results show?
Havas Group brought in €1.2bn in net revenue in the first half of 2022, up 19.8% on the same period last year. Organic growth reached 11.5%.
In the second quarter, Havas brought in €642m in net revenue, 21.3% higher than the second quarter of 2021.
Vivendi doesn’t release information on the operating margins or costs at Havas in its financial results, but Havas’ earnings before interest, tax and amortization (EBITA) was €112m, an increase of 27.8% on the previous year. The statement said that the company had seen “significant increase in personnel costs in the first half of the year”, echoing similar observations from IPG, Publicis and S4 in recent weeks.
Latin America led the group’s performance with 47.7% organic growth; Europe grew 11.7%, Asia Pacific grew 10.7% and North America was up 7.6%. Vivendi chairman Yannick Bolloré said the growth outside Europe was especially welcome: “Havas Group and Canal+ Group already generate 80% and 40% of their revenues, respectively, outside of France.”
“Our objective is to reach a critical global size in order to build an effective and sustainable business model in response to global consolidation and the growing weight of the major platforms.”
In the last six months, Havas won accounts for Klarna, Matalan, Lincoln Financial and Europcar.