We're past the appointed hour so welcome, if welcome is the right word, to the third quarter review. And we've got a presentation for you, which is very focused on the results. Not much, if anything, on strategy. So I think the results are probably even more -- the more important thing to focus on. So Paul, do you want to kick off? And then I'll just come back at the end so that Paul's not on his own out there in front. I'll come back just to summarize where I think we are.

Okay. Thanks, Martin. So this is the third quarter trading update for 2012. And so we had reported revenues are up 1.6% at GBP 2.496 billion with constant currency revenues up 4.8%. And on a like-for-like basis, revenues are up 1.9% in the quarter. Operating profits and operating margins in the first 9 months are in line with budget and ahead of last year. And the average net debt of 3 -- just over GBP 3.1 billion was up GBP 329 million compared to the same 9-month period last year at constant exchange rates. We continue to reflect the improvement on the 2011 year-end position, where principally, our working capital had deteriorated by over GBP 500 million. There's a slowdown in North America and Continental Europe, particularly in September; and functionally, in advertising, media investment management and public relations and public affairs. Net new business billings of GBP 3.359 billion in the first 9 months ranked first in all net new business tables and actually was up 28% on the same period last year. So turning to the revenues. On the third quarter, the like-for-like basis revenues are up 1.9%. Acquisitions added 2.9% to the revenue growth. So on a constant currency basis, revenues were up 4.8%. Foreign exchange was negative by 3.2% in the quarter, which led to reportable sterling growth of 1.6%. Currencies are having a significant impact. So if we were a dollar-reporting company, our revenues reported would have been flat. If we were a euro-reporting company, our revenue growth reported would have been 12.5%. Flowing that through for 9 months, our like-to-like growth in 9 months is 3%. Acquisitions have added 1/3 of the 3.1%, giving constant currency rate growth of 6.1%, while foreign exchange for the 9 months is minus 1.9%. And if we project…

Okay. So I just want to summarize where we are after the third quarter. So obviously, just to summarize what Paul said. July and August sort of came in roughly where we thought it was going to come in. September was an extremely disappointing month. When you think about what's happened, I mean, all the soundings or conversations, I think virtually without many exceptions, maybe more exceptions in the FMCG area, but even in the FMCG area, I think you're seeing some pressure. But this morning, as we announced, Credit Suisse in the financial services sector, Daimler in the automotive sector, all missed or announced revised figures. So I think whatever it was -- and we can have a discussion as to what happened in September. I mean it's strange, I was with one of our largest clients yesterday in Europe, and it was the first time the people inside the company said the CFO referred in their earnings call specifically to September as being a change. So quite why there was a change in September, I think we honestly don't know other than it's a change, which surprised our clients, surprised us and indeed surprised the authorities. I somewhat naïvely believed that the QE adjustments that we saw 4 or 5 weeks ago, whenever it was, by the ECB, by the Fed, by the Japanese and to some percent, the Chinese was a reflection of their concern because they've seen the stuff that we were seeing or we saw in October when we saw the September results. But I think they have been surprised as anybody. You look at the comments by Warren Buffett yesterday in Washington where he said the world is slowing down. There are signs of some stabilization in America in the housing market, but the…

Filippo Lo Franco, JPMorgan. I have 2 questions. The first is on the U.S. performance. Trying to understand there what's going on. I have the feeling that, I mean, most of this slowdown is also coming from PR and public affairs, which also relates...

Some, not most. I mean, some. That's 10% of the business, globally. I can't remember what it is America, 14%, 15% in America. So it's some.

It's some, which is related to the U.S. presidential election, yes or no?

Yes. Yes, I mean, listen, I mean, at the end of the day we can -- it's like trying to analyze what the hell happened in September. I mean, we cling on to possible reasons. I think that's some of the reasons.

So, I mean, once the U.S. presidential election is over, we should expect a bit of recovery there, I mean, for this part.

Yes, I mean, issue management is going to be very important. There are going to be certain sectors that will want to, whether if it's a new administration or even if it's a rerun of the old administration, will want to exercise their-- or put their cases, and I think there will be more opportunities. So I think it is, to some extent, cyclical, but it's more than it has been because more than we would have expected 6 or 9 months ago, but I think that will recover, yes.

The second question is on consumer insight. I'm trying to make an effort to see the glass half-full there.

Yes.

Because you still do another 0.8% growth that in itself is not...

Yes, it's the same. It's the same as Q2 actually.

But yesterday, Ipsos, again, in Q3 was -- I mean, they didn't say precisely but we extracted a kind of feeling that is still negative.

Yes, yes.

So, should we see some improvement there compared to the -- in terms of market share or just too early.

Well, it's very difficult. I mean, the Ipsos thing was after -- it was surprising after hours and no organic the growth rate for the second time. So...

We try to have a feel.

You know we will be in trouble if we didn't give you the organic growth rate. So the flip side of that is that we should benefit from it, and I think, to some extent, we are seeing that. And I think I've said to you before wherever I go because they put -- Ipsos puts Synovate together with Ipsos, you've got one spare person sort of thing. And that has resulted in some disaggregation but that's -- or confusion, to put it mildly for them. Having said that, that's going to cycle out at some point in time. So I don't think we should rely on that. But in the short term, I think we get a benefit. Again, I come back to the thing and I -- maybe what we should do, at some point in time, is show you, in the custom business, and if you look at the companies that we highlighted in the presentation whether it's Kantar Worldpanel, Kantar Media, Millward Brown, they are all the syndicated businesses or the semi-syndicated businesses and they do well. The other thing that does well is Turkey and China and Indonesia or the markets, the growing markets, the South American markets and the Asian markets that are doing well. So if you go to China and you look at consumer insight, whether it's a panel business or whether it's a custom business, it's doing well. So we have this-- I think in those businesses, there's a tremendous dichotomy. I mean, just go back to the Chicago Business Council meeting. So the first thing you see is confidence down. The second slide you see in the presentation is what's the action? And the second question in the survey is what's the action that you take as the head of the business? And 74% say cut discretionary expenditure. And I shout, we are not discretionary, okay? And we don't think we are, but the realities are as research comes -- custom research is a discretionary spend, and in a market that's being squeezed, that is going to be attacked. And I think it comes back to your point about public relations and public affairs, right, as well. So I think project-based businesses or subjects that clients believe to be projects and timing, I mean, somebody said to me yesterday, again at the IBM conference in Paris, that they saw a lot of postponement. This is another one of our clients, not IBM. They saw a postponement of a number projects over the September year end. So people shoving things into the fourth quarter. So I think delay as well is a sort of feature in what we've seen in September. [indiscernible] Yes. Go back, Patrick.

Patrick Kirby from Deutsche Bank. Firstly, at China, how much of a slowdown did that see in September, because I think for July and August, you have previously said no real sign of...

No real sign. It did see a slowdown. You saw we what bracketed in the 5% to 10% range for Greater China. I think Mainland China for Q3 and I think Paul gave the figure, what was it 12% or 13%?

Year-to-date.

For Greater China was it?

Yes.

Year-to-date. So some slowdown but, Patrick, I really don't think that we're representative of the slowdown in China. I mean, I look at the Unilever results this morning driven by emerging markets growth and because they have about half of their business in emerging markets and fast growth markets. And the mass consumer goods sectors, I don't think have been affected as much. It's not just China. It's India. You can't explain our Indian growth of 8%. The GDP is down south of 5. You can't explain that other than we're concentrated in those of mass consumer areas, the areas that the middle class and lower middle class are spending. And so we haven't seen yet that slowdown. So it was probably more likely to hit luxury first or capital and investment first than it is us.

And just secondly, on Europe, given the deterioration. Is there a need for further restructuring in the second half and how does that impact your ability to get 50 bps of margin growth.

Yes, well, we had our board meeting at Touffou, David's famous Château, which we don't own, but his wife owns. And we had our board meeting there a couple of weeks ago and we looked at our European businesses. And I think to be blunt, every one of the people who runs our European businesses, who all made presentations, would love to have a pot of money to be able to do further restructuring. But that will be easy for anybody to do. I mean, anybody can come in and say give me x, let me restructure y and we'll be off to the races next year. We think it's our sort of obligation and the priority to manage the business in the most effective way, because you could take exceptional provisions all the time, every year. Then they wouldn't be exceptional, they'd become regular. So we're trying to do everything in the context of normal activity. But the answer is, to your question, is everybody would love a little bit more flexibility who runs our European businesses pretty much irrespective of what sector they're in, right, to be able to do something. The other thing about Europe, which I think is different in Q3, is it has become more homogenous. In other words, there seemed to be a difference. People would say, I didn't see it that pronounced in our own business between North and South, and that seems to have come together. I certainly thought there was a difference between East and West, but that seems to have disappeared a bit. The good news, to the heart of your point, is that a couple of our clients have said, despite the fact that the Spanish business, their Spanish business, and indeed ours is being very challenged. Given the…

It's Ian Whittaker from Liberum. Just 3 questions. First of all, just on your there's a line in your statement that says the operating profit margins are in line with your budgets. I mean, if your revenue is weaker and your profits are in line, it implies the margins are actually ahead. So just a little bit of clarification whether that's on your original budget, your revised...

It's on the original budget.

On the original.

There is no such thing as revised budget. It's just the original.

Okay. So, it would imply -- I mean, the implication of that would be your margins are actually probably ahead of...

Well, you can imply whatever you want for that, I wouldn't comment.

It's better. Okay. Second question, just, again, on the margin side, so looking back to 2011, there was quite a significant margin beat on your guidance. But as you just said, your staff cost you did actually ramp up your staff hiring in the second half.

Towards the end of '11.

Towards the end of '11. So can you remind us what exactly was the beat, was it mainly due to staff was it mainly due to...

I think beat was actually more due to non-staff actually to be fair. Wasn't it? Again, our margin improvement has been more SG&A influenced in '11 and the beats, as you put it, in '12, in the first half, was totally due to SG&A. In fact, if anything it was more than due, because staff cost to revenue went the wrong way. I think in '11 the staff cost to revenue ratio stayed pretty much the same, either including incentives or excluding incentives but I may be wrong on that. But actually it was an SG&A, yes. So I think it's about time, I think having improved the staff cost to revenue ratio in the back end of '09 and in '10, it's about time we do something on the staff cost to revenue ratio. And in theory, sorry, if you just look at the -- in theory, if you look at the headcount numbers that should come through.

Just final question as well, I mean, the Bank of America contracts is quite a big win. Does that catapult -- so would Bank of America become one of your top 10 clients with that...

We'll see. Yes, we just -- we keep going backwards as we're going backwards in Q3, we'll go back. Let's go over there, row by row.

It's Matthew Walker from Nomura. Just one question, which is on next year, if you think about the components of growth for next year, if you have a negative result in Europe, not necessarily out of the question, maybe 6% or 7% growth in Rest of World. Do you think it's conceivable to have sort of 0 growth for next year? And under that scenario given what you just said about staff cost to revenue, what sort of margins do you think you'd do under that scenario and we do actually start taking out heads.

Well, yes, churn is still quite high. So turnover is still 15%, 20% probably in the north end of that range. So there is a natural -- now, but sadly, you tend to lose your good people rather than your bad people but, so when you say 15% to 20% turnover, there's a replacement. So it's not 15% to 20%. But it shouldn't be beyond the wit of men and women to manage the headcount. If our revenues are up 3, which they are for the first 9 months on a like-for-like basis and the headcount is flat, not year-to-year, but in the course of the 9 months, that's moving in the right direction. I mean, I just think intuitively that moves in the right direction. As to whether it's realistic to believe, in our famous last words, but 0 growth for next year would be really a tough forecast for next year. Now we're looking at GDP. I mean, you've got institutions who have historically been wrong, but you've got other institutions that have historically been right forecasting still 3, okay, for the world: 3 real, 5 nominal. I think that's too high. So do I think and on the basis that advertising is a proportion of GNP, overall, stays the same. Forget about whether emerging markets -- it's growing and going down in mature markets. It seems to me that, that's too gloomy a view. Now, having said that, it's been a bit of a chastening experience since September, and I should emphasize that we haven't gone through the Q3 RF. We start on Monday for a couple of weeks in New York going through the Q3 RFs. And then because we are following that with about a week's break, I think we then go into the budget. So we get to the budgets in sort of the middle end of November. And then we'll finalize them probably in the middle of December. I would find it -- forget about what our budgets say for a minute, because people are going to be conservative. I would find it very difficult to believe that you will see 0 growth next year. So I think your question is a bit of an academic one. If it was, it would put us under pressure to achieve the margin target that we're talking about, 50 basis points. I wouldn't say it's impossible, however. But it would put us under extreme pressure to get it done. Yes?

Alex DeGroote, Panmure Gordon. Two quick questions please, just in terms of leverage ratios, are you pretty comfortable at around the 1.8x now? And then secondly, just on the exceptionals, whilst, of course, they're exceptional. Does this also hint to the fact that there might be some other assets within the mix, may be held as investments or properties on the balance sheet, that you may be looking to extract some value from going forward?

Do you want to say about the leverage?

Yes, leverage, I think, as we indicated, I mean, last year we ended at 1.7x net debt to EBITDA. With the acquisition of AKQA, we were going to increase the leverage ratio by 0.1%. We obviously haven't got the full year pro forma effect on the net debt, but 1.8x, 1.7x, I'm absolutely comfortable. It's well sort of slap bang in the middle of that range that we're aiming to achieve, the sort of 1.5x to 2x. So in that sense, I think, we're doing everything we expected to and accommodating both the dividend growth, the share buybacks and sensible acquisition. So we're very comfortable.

Buddy Media was forced on us. We've sold the salesforce.com stock that we had as we came out of the holding period. So I think we've realized the whole of that, which I think yielded, what was it, 50? 50. The property, I mean, we had that tragic accident at the building, which we all feel terrible about. The plan was in place to sell the building, as Paul mentioned, that we've gone into a new building at Columbus or go into new building at Columbus Circle. And we have a conditional contract with quite a significant escrow. So I think it certainly would be penal on the buyers if they didn't complete. And we'll see whether it gets completed but that will give us, as we've said, a significant book and cash gain actually well over $100 million. But it doesn't signify anything. I mean Omniture and Buddy Media were forced on us really. We didn't choose Adobe or indeed salesforce.com to buy the companies. * In fact, to be honest with you, we'd prefer to have stuck with it because the web analytics business and the Facebook platform business, which Buddy Media was in, were 2 businesses where we -- which we were using really to train large numbers of people inside the company about Web analytics and the potency of Facebook. So no, it doesn't signal anything of that nature at all. I mean, we are a strategic VC for things like Omniture and Buddy Media and Joule and other things, and some of them are successful and some of them are not so successful. And we learn a lot, and part of it is it's not a venture capital exercise or a financial exercise. It really is trying to get our people to understand more about the potency of Facebook and other things. Yes, yes. We go to Tamsin out here.

Tamsin Garrity from UBS. I was wondering whether you could talk about the quadrennial impact that we always wait for and never seems to occur. And just break out maybe some of the impact you've had this year.

Well, Tamsin, if it wasn't a [indiscernible], I disagree with that. I mean ,it could have been worse, so.

But also, looking at the U.K., we have maintained very resilient numbers here, so just under 5% in the third quarter. I was wondering whether you could give some detail around that and whether you think some of that impact has been Olympics or why you think we are being so resilient.

Well, I think some of it must have been the Olympics. I think it might be that we've got good people. It's not beyond the wit of a man to -- or woman to believe that. We have a strong market position in the U.K. I mean, I do think there is something a bit Lunar [ph] about how small companies -- and then she thrust a booklet in my hand, which says, "50 technology companies which are all growing not only their topline, Jesus [ph], but bottom line.

But you want it? Indeed, the small companies index, 1,961 companies, hit an all-time peak on the 29th of March, I believe gaining the most.

Yes, that's probably a better signal.

[Indiscernible]

That's probably a -- well, we also track it to the market and just see where is it basing.

There's more money in that area than anywhere else.

Okay, this is an ad for Numis and their smaller company’s indicator.

[Indiscernible] over there.

[Indiscernible] over there.

[Indiscernible].

It's good to see. We weren't allowed to put the WPP logo on Sky this morning. So it's a bit like now you're thrusting the Numis logo down our throats in our presentations. Anyway, I -- where I disagree, I mean, for example, the ECB bankruptcies in France are up by 30%. We've seen 2 bankruptcies in our own sector where we've -- which we've capitalized on. But there was an initiative in Downing Street this week about supply chain financing for small companies. The banks are not lending to the SMEs, irrespective of the perspicacious Numis investment strategy. I think we see smaller companies under pressure, and we certainly see that at the client level, the media owner level and the agency level. And I think it is tougher for the smaller business, I mean, irrespective -- acknowledging what Lunar [ph] says, the technology might drive differences certainly on the topline. So I think the U.K., I think we've done well. We have -- previously, we did even better. It was 8%, I think, up in terms of revenues. We've added a couple of thousand people. It's gone from 12,000 -- I think the precise figure is 12,400 to 14,000 the last couple of years. So we've added an account reflecting that growth. So all credits to our business. As to where it come from, pretty much across-the-board. I mean, if you look at the results, we -- actually, consumer insight in a mature market has done quite well. So -- and public relations and public affairs have done quite well, too. So I think it's pretty much across-the-board, and I think it's to do with the fact that we've probably integrated our media offer very effectively. Our advertising agencies are in good shape. Our digital businesses are good. They could probably be even bigger in the U.K., but they're good. So just, I think, good, well-run businesses with good people. So -- and I think in the current environment, it's sort of helping the bigger rather than helping the smaller. So we saw Brilliant Media, we saw Rapier all go down -- both go down. And I think there are some stresses and strains in the system. Interestingly, that supply chain initiative, I mean, is probably a good initiative as long as it doesn't result in supply chain financing resulting in extension of credit terms rather than reducing credit terms.

And then finally, just on looking into 2013, would you really have to be seeing something more in the region of 3% organic to be doing the 50 basis points of margin improvement?

I think 3% -- famous last words. I'd say I would be comfortable with 3%. I don't think it has to be 3%. Now once it gets to 0, which was the previous suggestion, it would get quite tough. I'm not saying we couldn't do it, but I said it would get -- obviously gets quite tough.

Aspesi, Sanford Bernstein. Two questions, please. Is there a risk, if the economy deteriorates further, that some of your performance bonuses against campaigns could be at risk? Is there a revenue risk associated in any significant way with the final demand for the goods and services of your clients?

Well, I mean, if the economy deteriorates, there are 2 risks on incentives. One is what you just pointed out, which is not big in the course of things.

We'll see [ph] next year?

Yes. But it's not big in the context of things whenever it falls, okay? There's great thing about performance incentives. I mean, whilst they are there, they're not a crucial part of our compensation. Some of those incentives we can control. Some of them we can't. So even in normal times, it may not be -- we don't get them because we -- it's not our control, okay? The other type of incentives is our incentives, meaning bonuses internally. And those -- that's part of that 6 to 7 of variable costs. So I don't think -- in our thinking actually, I don't think in any of the reviews that we do like the group that's here. Or we don't really look at -- maybe we should. And it's an area of risk that we should look at, but it doesn't come up on the radar screen, the risk radar screen. But if incentives -- sales-related -- prototype NOS [ph] sales-related incentives were to fall, what impact that would have? And so it doesn't really figure into our thinking. I mean, we'll take a look at it, but I don't think that we've really factored that in as a specific risk. I think the answer is no.

Okay. And a second question. This was a quarter of mobile for some tech companies, particularly Facebook.

Yes.

Do your economics change in any way based on the shift to mobile advertising for some of your digital agencies?

Now you see, this conversation reminds me of the sort of conversation with a trade magazine who say, "Well, there's -- look, a team pitch win or a team pitch review, does this mean the beginning of teams or the end of teams? I mean, the fact that Facebook does have a successful quarter on mobile, and then the week before, Google had an unsuccessful week, I mean, I don't think it was because of CPCs being reduced. I think Google had to wrestle with Motorola Mobility. And if you look at the earnings miss, it's pretty much equivalent to the loss at Motorola in the first quarter that it was consolidated. I think it's too early to come to a view on mobile. Somebody asked me this morning, and I think it was Thomson Reuters who said, "What's the most important thing over the next 10 years?" God alone knows, but I said, "Mobile," which is as good an answer as I could summon up within 5 seconds as anything else, or within 1 second. It sounded like a good answer. And it is going to be very important, but I think it's too early to judge. And just the Mary -- the famous Mary Meeker slide, which I don't think we can put up here, but I don't know whether we popped it in but 0.5% of their budgets is being spent on mobile at the moment. And we know that consumers are spending 1/3 of their time between mobile and Internet. And then the other -- the Internet piece of their budgets is 19% or something like that. So it's 20% in total, and we know that people are spending 1/3 of their time. So the answer to your question, is going to become more important whether Facebook's results or Google's results, are right. It's -- monetizing it is not easy. We still have a problem internally. We do pretty well on the agency side, but it hasn't become a big money spinner for us yet. It'll come, but it's still early days. So I don't think you'd run up the flag and say we're getting there yet. It's going to take time. You -- do you have a different view by any chance?

I don't have a view. I was wondering if you could help me how the economics work.

Oh, well, the -- listen, the economics from our point of view in terms of application work, in terms of advertising -- this thing about it's a small screen and therefore it's less flexible, I don't buy. I think the screen will adapt over time. I think going back to the Thomson Reuters question, just what would a smartphone or the equivalent thereof look like in 10 years' time? God alone knows. But it's -- we'll be more facile with it as consumers. And the device that we use, whether it's a small tablet and even smaller tablet than the new iPad, whatever, I don't know. A smart or smarter phone, I don't know. Maybe some other device that we just can't even contemplate. Now whether it's Sergey Brin and Larry Page are running around with those -- and Nikesh Arora running around with those glasses, which we can download things, and so I will -- theoretically, in a year's time, I'll be standing here with a pair of spectacles where I will -- my presentation in front of my eyes and I don't have to look at the screen, I don't know. I mean, God alone knows. So there's a driverless car as well. So maybe I'll be doing the presentation from a driverless car. So -- but I think it will become more and more important. Clearly, that's going to be a major source of revenue for us, and we've got to get ourselves ready for it, I think, and there's a big opportunity. Yes?

Just coming back to what we saw in Q3, so these interesting discussions. Clearly, Europe is weak, and emerging...

They might be interesting, but a little bit dispiriting.

Yes, Europe is weak, EMEA is stronger. When you look at the swing factor, in fact, from Q2 to Q3, both EMs [ph] and digital seems to have slowed down probably even more quickly than the Europe, which is already in negative territory. So what do you think of that? And in particular, like a secondary question on the U.S., in your Slide 9, you've talked about direct and digital revenues, and you didn't mention the U.S. has been one of the strong areas. So I infer from that, that it wasn't a strong area. So can you explain what you see here on the -- both fronts?

Yes, I think direct and digital did better outside the U.S. than inside the U.S. I mean, Chris is nodding yes. And so I think we saw better growth in direct and digital, or digital interactive and Internet, outside the U.S. than we did inside the U.S. in Q3. So I think that was the answer there. Well, the hope's that's not going to be the situation going forward. But certainly, in the case of Q3, obviously that would be a reflection of what we saw in September. A journalist asked me the same question in relation to the slowdowns, and kind of there's a -- and I said just be careful what you wish for. I mean, the fact is, if you look at the BRICs and the MIST and the CIVETS, how do you define it? If you look at the digital business outside and if we gave you a break on the digital business outside the U.S., it would be better than the 7% that you see overall. Whatever it is, it's better, all right? And as we scramble for growth at 4, 3, 2 and whatever it's going to be, whether it's 0 next year or 3 next year, to my mind, it's still a no-brainer that those markets will grow. I mean, the one worrying thing that I -- if I was soul searching about this, was Central and Eastern Europe. Not Russia, but Poland. It's out -- that sort of concerns me because that -- they're not insulated, obviously, from Eurozone and stuff. But that sort of does concern me. The rest of it had to happen because everybody -- first of all, the Chinese have been saying for 2 years they're going to lower the rate of growth, so it's not a surprise.…

Richard Jones at Goldman. First, I just wanted to ask if anything particular going on at PR. So they seem to have been particularly weak. I don't remember seeing that the U.S. election had a particularly negative effect. I had previously...

Yes. No, I think that's a fair comment. I think if you notice, we did say that across all our brands in the U.S., we were down. So in Q2, I think 3 of them were, and one of them wasn't. Now I think we're finding it tough, but I don't think there's anything sort of intrinsically wrong. But I think it's been tougher sledding for H&K and for Burson. And for Ogilvy PR. Cohn & Wolfe, I think, has found it tougher in the U.S. If you look outside the U.S., I think it's a little bit better. But it has been tougher, whether it's for the U.S. -- we -- we're always trying to find reasons for these things. It doesn't really matter at the end of the day what the reasons are. It is what it is. So you have to deal with it. And whether it's increasing the investment in good people, whether it's Western Europe restructuring, whatever happens to be, you have to deal with it. So I think there is -- I share your concern in a sense a little bit about that. You can't explain it totally by the election. But, I mean, that's one of the contributory factors.

And then secondly, so September's flat. The budget for the fourth quarter implies between plus 1 and plus 3.

Depending on which you take, yes.

I just -- I wasn't entirely clear on your level -- why you had a confidence of why that would be better growth in September.

Well, again, it is what it is. I mean, we're giving you -- I mean, it's not our forecast for the numbers, right? So it's our rollout of what we see. So if you just think about the process for a minute, each operating company, knowing what they saw in September, have prepared their October to December forecast. We haven't gone through that yet. We will go through that in the next 2 weeks. And if we find any holes in it, either positive or negative, we will do that. I don't think that you can -- September is a big month. And if I look at it in terms of months as opposed to quarters, it's one of the biggest months. October is a big month. November is a big month, and December tends to be a big month anyway. I did indicate to you that the pattern seems to be that October and November will be positive. I won't say any more about December other than it looks to me to be -- I don't feel -- I don't -- think confident from a positive sense, I mean, not from a negative sense. I will find it very difficult to believe that December, as forecast, will turn out to be what it is. But we'll see. We'll see. And if you do -- again, the math show that I think, depending on whether you think it's 2.5% for the year or 3%, your figure is right. It'll come out between 1% and 3% for the quarter. If you think about it, if 4%, 3%, 2% is continued, it'll be 1%.

It's Daniel Kerven from Merrill Lynch. If nominal GDP is growing at around 5% for this year, and you've had some quadrennial benefits, then why are you only saying 2.5% to 3%...

I don't know. I ask the others, too, because they're in the same boat. It's -- the -- it's -- that is difficult to -- so maybe the figures for this year are wrong. I mean, you would think with GDP forecast at 3% or 3.5% and 5% and 5.5%, that it would be better. But that hasn't proven to be the case. Particularly, going back to the quadrennial question, that, that would give you a boost. But it hasn't worked out that way. Maybe it's to do with the disposition of the -- where the growth is coming from. Maybe -- our U.S. business, again to the heart of your question, U.S. business, I would have liked to -- putting it mildly -- liked to have seen better. So going back to Rich's question about PR, I'd like to see PR stronger in the U.S., so I'd like to see our advertising and media businesses stronger in the U.S., I'd like to see our consumer insight business in the project in the customer side of the business better, branding and identity and health care better. So I think we've had pressure across most of the segments or 1 or 2 segments where we have -- the flip side is also true. It's interesting, in relation to the digital question, we've done better outside the U.S. than that. But it's not -- I mean, I agree with that. I mean, it is -- you would -- if you're doing a sort of macro top-down, you would expect it to be that. But it's come under pressure. It might be to do with the mix of our clients, it might be to do with the mix of the countries. I can't explain it. Maybe that the forecasts are wrong, the GDP forecast, just like us. Yes? Just in the front again.

I apologize for asking another question. I also apologize for interrupting the gloomy mood for next year. But I have a quick question about really when I look at the net new businesses. I mean, you have increased this year by 28%. I mean, I know that this is in relation between..

Not in Q3, but in the first 9 months.

Yes, yes, exactly. I know that the relation is no longer what it used to be in the past. But for sure, this must have some positive impact into next year. So it's possible to quantify what could add in terms of growth next year, et cetera, is variable for other essential [ph] ..

It is, but I wouldn't. And then you can compare the 5 figure to 72, which is the topline billings. So it gives you a -- I mean, the way those figures are compiled, they take -- the figures that we quote -- come from the trade magazines, which are notoriously accurate. So you have to be a little careful. But let's say there's errors both ways. The 5 billion, which is the figure that we put together. If you compare that to this, the 72 it's fair. Having said that, in an environment that's coming under pressure, what people promise or say is the figure often doesn't turn out that way. So it's not big, and sometimes it even gets delayed. But broadly, I don't think the delay is the issue. There's also stuff that falls out the bottom of the pond as well. And then you've also got the base business, which is -- which people are taking a closer look at. So I come back to that slide of the business council last week, which was, "What's the first thing you do? You cut discretionary spending." So then, it's a question about what you define as discretionary spending. And I come back to also to the point not wanting to be overly gloomy because gloomy, I don't want to be but this happens at a time when people are thinking about their budgets. And I think that if you just look at the -- forget about WPP for a minute. If you look at the welter [ph] of news that has come through in the last 2, 3 weeks, IBM, Intel, GE. And then on the day of the business council, on the Friday, GE announces its numbers, and it misses on the topline. So I think people look at that and they say it's kind of -- it just becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. So you look at things more cautiously. So I think we have to look at -- I mean, we'd be very silly for us to look at things more optimistically and come [indiscernible]. I'd rather look at look at it pessimistically and be able to manage it a little bit more effectively.

But I can do this, so.

You can do whatever you like. Yes? One more.

Just one on sort of the potential for debt refinancing for next year and how we should look at interest costs. Sort of are there any opportunities for you to bring down your interest rates?

Yes, but limited. It's not a huge requirement. The convertible is actually an 0 14 [ph] item from memory. But that is still expected to convert. There is one bond out there from memory, so I'm going to owe it to my head, which is an 8% bond, which we only partially rolled, so that, obviously, will be significantly cheaper. The other bond, just from memory, is around sort of 6%. It's a bit -- it is very marginal, the net effect. I mean, our weighted average cost of debt when you add up the whole portfolio has kind of shifted to the benefit of 3/8% to 1/2% in the last 12 months as we rolled over new debt at longer maturities and at good prices. So it's not that significant hurdle [ph] or cost. What is significant, however, much more significant, is if interest rates increase, which has a number of impacts, so what does to it, it does mean they generate significantly better returns on our net cash, which, at the moment, are earning very little money. So...

Yes. If you want to -- this may sound perverse, but a bull signal to me would be if interest rates rose. So, I mean, funny, the reason the financial markets, I think, got ahead of the game after the QE from Europe and U.S. and the Japanese was because they saw maybe the potential of printing money as the way out of the problem with a bit of inflation. And if you look, for example, at some of the trading announcements, they complain about commodity price inflation. So they have very little pricing power. Retail is also getting more and more agitated. You have Amazon changing the structure of the retail industry and the competitive problems. That puts pressure on the manufacturers. The manufacturers can't increase prices because there aren't -- is inflation. They're getting commodity price inflation. And that's pushing their margins, so they're looking at their supply chains, and not just finance but looking at cost, which -- so I actually think, I mean, irrespective of what impact that might have on our own interest borrowing cost and cash receipts, interest received, I do think that, that would, to my mind, although others might regard as being a negative signal, I think it's a positive signal. Not a lot but starting to move up.

Okay. Just a quick follow-on. You wouldn't expect for interest costs to be much different from 2012 from where we're looking at the moment?

No, we said we do have more debt on the balance sheet because of AKQA principally. So I just actually found a table of our debt maturity profiles handily. The '13 bond is actually at good prices, 4.375 at EUR 600 million. So that will make us [indiscernible]. It's '14 where we have the next rung [ph]. And as I mentioned, we have an 8% and a 5.875 and a convertible. So it's really, as I mentioned -- so the immediate impact is the additional debt we took on for AKQA. The longer-term impact, if interest rates rise, because our, well, the cost of earnings are principally fixed, we will get some closure. Because of the interest rate, earnings will be higher.

But, I mean, modified a little bit by the gains, hopefully, on the property certainly on Buddy Media. Okay, anybody else or not? All right, thank you. We're all here if you want any more. Thank you very much. Thank you.