Standard & Poor’s today placed its long-term ratings for Omnicom Group, including the ‘A-‘ corporate credit rating, on “CreditWatch with negative implications” notes Adweek.
In case you missed it, Omnicom’s recent Q4 earnings call was bleak. The company reported an income drop of 14% to $271M. That’s down from $314M. During the call, CEO John Wren said:
“As in past recessions, we expect to outperform GDP. Offsetting any decline in spending, and the uncertainty in revenue, we are reducing our cost structure. In the fourth quarter, we eliminated many open positions and implemented targeted staff reductions in many of our agencies. We also cut back non-client, non-essential travel and discretionary costs. We also reduced incentive compensation for senior executives, but preserved incentives for most other employees. And finally we froze our delayed salary increases in order to reduce lay offs.”
Still, it did nothing to assuage the concerns of raters who expect the company to continue to suffer.