Good morning, everybody. Good early morning. It's about -- what time is it? 5:30 here in New York. We've got an extra 1 hour in bed because they put the clocks back. All right. So this is the trading statement for third quarter 2016. You'll see the -- we have presentation on the third quarter. You have hard copy on the 30-year history and other information. Paul's going to kick off with a full description of the third quarter and I'll come in a little bit on the strategy after he's finished. Over to you, Paul.

Thank you, Martin. Okay. So good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Third quarter 2016, the highlights of the third quarter and the year-to-date. So in the third quarter, we had reported revenues up 23.4% at GBP 3.6 billion. On a constant currency basis, revenues were up 7.6%, and on a like-for-like basis, revenues were up 3.2%. On the third quarter net sales basis, growth was 23.6% on a reported basis, due to the strength of foreign exchange, 7.8% on a constant currency basis and 2.8% like-for-like. On the 9-month year-to-date, reported revenues were up 16% at 15.8% or just under or just over GBP 10 billion, up 8.5% on a constant currency basis and up 3.9% on a like-for-like revenue basis. The 9-month year-to-date net sales growth, again, was nearly 16% on a reportable basis at 15.2%, 8% on a constant currency basis and 3.4% like-for-like. Reported 9-month headline operating margin was up 0.4 margin points consistent with the half year and 0.3 margin points on a constant currency basis, again, consistent with the half year in line with the targets for the full year. The average constant currency net debt was up GBP 434 million for the first 9 months at GBP 4.2 billion and point-to-point net debt was up only GBP 74 million on the same basis by constant currency, reflecting significant working capital improvement. 9-month net new business wins of GBP 3.5 billion for the 9 months compared to GBP 3.2 billion on a constant currency basis for the same period, i.e., 9 months in 2015. And after 9 months, the share buybacks totaled GBP 342 million or 1.6% of share capital compared to GBP 588 million for the same period in 2015 with a full year target of between 2% and 3%. To take you through the…

Thanks, Paul. As usual, what I'd like to do is just start off on Slide 35 with a little overview of how we see things from a macro, micro point of view. Global GDP forecast for this year of around 3%, 3.5%, so low growth. A little bit of recovery, but it's the first part of the forecasting cycle, most commentators, IMF, World Bank, Goldman et al, are talking about 3.5% to 4% nominal, so a slight increase. If you look at the U.S. Business Council, which essentially tends to be more focused on the U.S., a little bit more conservative and has proven to be a bit more accurate last 3 or 4 years, most forecasters started high and come back. So tepid growth, it's not quite Goldilocks, it's not too hot, not too cold. I think on balance, it's a little bit too cold. Brexit impact is estimated by the IMF to be about 0.002% for the world, a little bit more for Europe, EU, a little bit more for the U.K. And as we've indicated in our statement, we think Q3 reflected a little bit of the Brexit uncertainties. Every client we've talked to almost without exception always with heavy U.K. exposure, the first item of discussion is Brexit and the uncertainty. And of course, there is added uncertainty still concerns over Greece in the background, and indeed, European banks, Germany and Italy. Uncertainty from the political point of view. A number of key elections; France, Germany probably being the most prominent in Europe and referendum of the most prominent, which is the Renzi referendum shortly. And obviously this has been heightened by populists and protectionists issues. Here in the U.S. on Friday, we saw Comey's release of a letter to Congress, which has probably thrown another…

We have some microphones going around, so we could start here. If you could just say your name and where you're from help Martin, as he can't see who is talking, so it'd be very helpful.

It's Ian Whittaker from Liberum. I have 3 questions. First of all, just in terms of, you mentioned you're a Trumpkin. Just in terms of the U.S. presidential elections, obviously, we sort of got more uncertainty going on there. You've said before that Q4 does tend to be important for your profitability, in part because of ad hoc project work that comes in. Do you think there's a potential risk to some of that work from what we're seeing in the U.S. sort of at the moment and determined by the outcome of the election, particularly if Trump gets in. The second question, which is the sort of your initial thoughts on China in 2017, generally just from a sort of GDP perspective, but also as well for your own business, whether you think it's more likely to reflect the trends that we've seen in Q3. And then just coming back in terms of your targets on the percentage of revenues coming from the emerging markets. I mean, obviously, sort of China has an acceleration growth, India very good, Brazil and Russia sort of are you perhaps a little bit more concerned about the longer-term growth potential rates in those markets than maybe you were 12 months ago?.

Okay. All right. And on Trumpkin, I'm mystified by the ad hoc projects comment. I think it principally comes from Omnicom. I don't think it came from IPG. I don't think it came from Publicis. I think they've indicated they have projects going on for 3 years, again, which mystifies me, but maybe they know more about their business than we do. Having said that, I don't think there is any difference. I think this commentary around ad hoc projects, we have ad hoc projects all the way through the year. If you look at, I mean, firstly, agency of record in our industry generally has got less and less -- retainers have got less and less. So in that sense, I think for everybody, the business has potentially become more volatile in that sense, although it doesn't exhibit. I think what people are saying is that all our forecast and you'll notice that in 2 or 3 parts of our trading statements, our third quarter statement, we refer to traditional conservatism. And I think what we all see is that our businesses don't wish when they make these forecasts, which are bottom-up forecasts to be caught out. They tend to be inherently conservative. And I remember, I think I've said this on a quarterly call before, John Wren and I said about 6 or 7 years ago, we should swap jobs at the end of Q3 going into Q4, because everybody consistently is very conservative in their forecast. So I think people are just really, if I put it a little bit crudely, covering their backsides as to what may or may not happen. But to single out projects, projects continue through the years. Branding, I think in John's call, he referred to softness. In explaining U.S. softness in…

It's Lisa Yang from Goldman Sachs. My first question is on your organic growth guidance for the full year, So you still retrade over 3%, which would imply quite some underlying acceleration in Q4, due to tougher competition in the U.S., so given the improvement looking to come from the U.K., just wondering if you can give us some color on which regions do you think will accelerate in Q4, between Europe, U.S. and rest of the world? My second question is on the M&A impact for 2017. As you mentioned earlier, you have 46 deals so far this year, Triad Media is quite a big one. So could you give us any indications or impact from the deal you've done so far? And the last one is on programmatic. We've seen some slowdown in the growth of Omnicom because of the contribution from Accuen, which I think was only 30 basis points in Q3 versus 90 basis points last year. Just wondering if you're seeing any similar trends at Xaxis, and if not, how do you explain the gap between the 2 companies?

Okay. Well, just on the first array, I think we've indicated in our forecast, we just want to be quite clear, the differences between well over and over are more to do with the fact that there is a narrowing of the difference between revenues and net sales. Here we're at the end of Q3 at 3.8% and 3.4%. So that's really the basic reason for the change in language there. On Q4 itself, what we've indicated also in talking about the forecast that we're reviewing in the first 2 weeks of November, what we've clearly indicated is that the fast growth markets will grow faster than the mature markets. So it is true. I think that something like 40% of our profits come in the fourth quarter of the -- it's really sort of 2/3 -- its 1/3, 2/3 first half, second half, but the balance in the second half of the, sorry in the fourth quarter of the year and the second half of the year is skewing more to the fast-growth markets. So we would expect the BRICs to the next level in Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, and Central and Eastern Europe to be stronger. In terms of acquisition, we've said for this year, where it is in that 4% to 5% range, we're in the process of doing our budgets for next year. Triad will have an impact principally next year. We'll see exactly how that folds out and it depends on 1 or 2 other things we do before the end of the year. But I would expect -- we're balanced at the moment roughly between organic and growth by acquisition. I'd like to see organic really more than 50% of the total growth, but at the moment, acquisitions -- I…

It's Tom here from Citigroup. Two questions. The first one is on 2017, a company we're talking about already but you do go out of your way in the outlook to say you see no reason why revenue net sales can't be above 3% in '17. So I was wondering whether that's something specific in terms of account impacts or trends or is that just based on your general feeling of how the macro is trending? And then the second question is on market research or data investment management as you call it. You say growth is weaker, but that's acceptable. I'm just wondering whether that's a function of sort of just sort of giving up on it or is there a -- can you talk about that in particular in the context of the restructuring you're doing earlier in the year?

Yes. Just on the 2017. I mean, it's not so strange, here we are going into November, we're starting our budgeting process or planning process. We update our 3-year plans. We're going into our budgeting process. I don't think it's -- but the answer to your question, Tom is, this is a reference really to GDP growth rates. It's more about what we see the general picture is likely to be, and when we look at next year, the GDP forecast is slightly stronger. I think we saw a little bit cynical about that, but that's more to do with the stage we're in the forecasting cycle, rather than the accuracy of the forecast. And again, I just underline when I look at the business council forecast, we had a business council meeting in LA, the week before last. It's clear from that, that U.S. businesses retained there or U.S.-based businesses retained their caution about what's happening in the U.S. economy, going into 2017. So I would say, and answer to your question, it's more about the general than it is about the specific. We're not -- by no means we're giving up on data investment management or DIM. What we're saying, however, is that, that custom research is a difficult business. And if you look at the results that we saw, we've seen an improvement and it's also after a very difficult period. GfK still are struggling. Nielsen's figures came off quite significantly in the buy area. That looks as though it's a client concern or dissatisfaction or cost-cutting in relation to their audit business, rather than their media business. But clearly, I think because of this low growth environment with low inflation and focus on cost, custom research, in particular, does suffer and it goes back to the…

It's Chris Collett from Deutsche. Just had 2 questions. One was just on, I think you mentioned that ANA report had been good for the media audit industry. I was just wondering have you seen an increase in an above what you'd normally expect of clients conducting media audits. And would you like to share if there's been any results from that? And then second question perhaps for Paul, was about very good working capital position of the third quarter, how much of that do you think you can hold on to at the end of the year?

You go ahead Paul on working capital, and I'll come back to media audit.

I think on working capital, we've done a number of things that it is a side benefit of the shared financials services centers. So the 2 markets where we've done considerably better than a year ago, China and the U.K. and, in fact, the focus has been on reducing the amount of receivables outstanding, that were overdue. And we've seen a very significant improvement in the U.K. because improvement in process and a better understanding of how the shared services center and the businesses can work together collectively to resolve the issues that we find at the client level. So that's been like a, what I call process and operational success. In China, it's more to do with faster billing of invoices and it's got a tax difficulty in raising invoice in China than canceling. So what tends to happen is the process of raising invoice has to wait for media verification and that quite can be quite lengthy. And it was more correction of a problem that we had last year, getting back to normal but then making further improvements, that's probably the most significant number. I think what is clear is we're beginning to understand in all cases, how to make the process better. And I think speaking in terms of Australia, where we're combining, obviously, our business with the STW businesses, one of their media businesses had 0% or 2% overdues after 30 days and with an excellent example of what can be achieved. So I think there's many markets where we can make the improvements so they should be sustainable. I think we've had a good run, but partly, it was a correction of a situation we weren't very happy about in China a year ago.

I think the 2 biggest improvements have been in China and the U.K. and that demonstrates what we can do when we put our minds to it. And we haven't been -- I think one of our weaknesses has been that we haven't been placed enough emphasis on it and it just shows what you can do if you focus on it. So I think there's more to come if we focus sufficiently on it. On audits, there have been a few audits. I wouldn't say -- I think 1 competitor, I think it was Publicis, mentioned 20 audits. I don't think it's anywhere near as many as that, but there is certainly increasing attention to audits and raising audits. But the issue is not and I come back to what I said in the presentation. The issue is not the U.S. issue. I mean, all 6 holding companies are being labeled in the same way and assuming just put to 1 side whether any is different to the other for a minute, the issue is not a U.S. issue. And the QED of that is what has happened subsequent to that ANA report. There has been a change in leadership of the ANA. And if you look at the statements by the ANA at the ANA Masters, there has been a change in tone and a change in emphasis already. And I think there will be a further one. But again, I don't want to say I told you so, but I do want to say I told you so. We've said that the 2 areas of the world, which needed the greatest scrutiny were Japan and we offered the ANA we said, there are no rebate issues in the U.S. If you want to deal with problems, work…

Patrick?

It's Patrick Wellington from Morgan Stanley. A couple on margins. From memory last year, smaller currency movement led to about a 15 basis points reduction in your margin. This year you got the currency movement and you point towards a 10 basis point improvement in your margin, despite the ANAs being the place where the margin -- where the currency effect has come through. So surely we should be looking for more than 40 basis points for the full year. And while you consider that bombshell. The second one is -- the second one just relates to the number of staff. Martin, you've got number of staff broadly flatten out for the last 3 years and yet your margins keep rising 30 basis points. How long can this miracle be performed? Were you hinting earlier that we were going to get some more exceptionals at the end of 2016?

Okay. Patrick, we'll let you have it. The answer -- while I let Paul -- well, let me just weigh in a bit on the margins and then he can. On the margins, we're very happy with our 30 basis points pre-currency. If we can eke out more with currency, I would just make the point that at some point in time, the pound is going to go the other way and we'll have a headwind of significant proportions. It may take some time, depending on your views on Brexit, but it will take -- it will be more difficult. So I think we want to do it in line with our model of 30 basis points or 40 basis points, whatever delight you take in tweaking our tale, Patrick. On the headcount, we're pleased with the fact we've managed to control it. We are investing, whilst we've invested a lot of time and effort in Coretech and in improving the back-office or actually not improving the back office, really fundamentally trying to reengineer for the first time in our sort of 30-year history, our back-office is not an easy exercise. We've done okay so far, but there are -- it is challenging to say the least. And I think headcount or lack of headcount increase indicates. This is not just back office, I think our companies are running their businesses in a highly responsible way and we're looking for ways that we can improve our productivity all the time. But the trouble with you Patrick is, we give you a finger and you take our hand, we give you our hand, and you take our full arm. I think we will just leave you with our finger.

I think it is very hard to predict. So the truth is the numbers will fall out as they fall out. I think at the 9-month stage, you can see that the pound weakness against the dollar is 15%, the pound weakness against the euro is 15%. With 37% U.S.-based, 20% constant European based. Now the benefit of restructuring in the main is in our lower -- the lowest margin region that we have is Western Continental Europe. So the better we can do in financial performance, in terms of margin improvement, in Western Continental Europe has an overall effect on the group margin. The U.S.A., however, is our best margin region. And so margin improvement from the U.S. is less likely to come through. And so the relative strength of the margin improvements per region adjusted for the relative strength of the pound versus the dollar and the euro. That combination is really hard to predict. But in truth, as I said at the half year, we're expecting 10 basis points. And what is the maximum we could expect to come from currency benefit to margin, 20 basis points. So it is somewhere in that range. But the outcome will be purely dependent upon those really 2 key elements. The margin improvement for the 2 regions and the relative strengthens or weakness of the pound versus those 2 currencies. Anymore for any more? I think Martin, we have come to an end.

Okay. Very good. Thank you, everybody. Look forward to talking to you soon. Fran is with me in New York. I think Lisa’s in London, Paul is in London. And we have our U.S. call in a few hours. Okay. Thank you very much indeed.