WPP FY13 Profit Rises - Quick Facts

(RTTNews) - Advertising giant WPP Plc. (WPP.L, WPPGY) Thursday reported full-year 2013 pre-tax profit of 1.30 billion pounds, higher than 1.09 billion pounds in the prior year. Headline profit before tax for the current year totaled 1.46 billion pounds.

On a per share basis, earnings were 69.6 pence, up from 62.8 pence per share a year ago. Headline earnings per share were 80.8 pence for the year 2013.

Announcing its preliminary results, the company said its annual revenues grew 6.2 percent to 11.02 billion pounds from 10.37 billion pounds last year. Like-for-like revenues were up 3.5 percent.

For 2014, the company expects like-for-like revenue and gross margin growth of over 3%. It targets operating margin and gross margin or net sales margin improvement of 0.3 margin points excluding the impact of currency.

The board has also decided to target a further increase in the pay-out ratio to 45% over the next two years and, as a result, declares an increase of 20% in the final dividend to 23.65 pence per share.

This, together with the interim dividend of 10.56 pence per share, makes a total of 34.21 pence per share for 2013, an overall increase of 20%.

This represents a dividend pay-out ratio of 42%, compared to a pay-out ratio of 39% in 2012. The firm said it is targeting a pay-out ratio of 45% in 2014.