Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the WPP First Quarter 2020 Trading Update Conference Call and Webcast. [Operator Instructions] Today's conference is being recorded. Mark Read, please go ahead, sir.

Thank you very much, George, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to our first quarter trading update. I'm joined here by John Rogers, our CFO; and Peregrine Riviere, who heads up our Investor Relations efforts. And thank you all for joining, and I hope that you're all safe, as are your friends and family. It's a difficult time, and our thoughts, clearly, are with all of those affected. And all of us at WPP are very thankful to the efforts of the health care workers and other frontline and essential workers who are doing so much to keep us safe and help us manage through the current time. I assume that everyone has the slides in front of them. We'll move to the second slide, our safe harbor statement. I think it's important that everyone reads that before we start. So we turn to Slide 3, the agenda. I'll make some brief introductory remarks, and then John will take us through the financial performance, and then John and I will -- and I'll come back and talk about the business update, and then John and I will take your questions at the end of the formal presentation. So turning to Page 4, our COVID-19 response. There's really been 4 areas that we've been focusing on over the last 8 to 10 weeks. The first clearly is to maintain the health and safety of our people. That's our #1 priority. And we had sent everyone at home from work on March 16. So 95% of the 107,000 people from WPP have largely been working from home since then. It's clearly an anxious time for them. I think they're doing a fantastic job in providing an uninterrupted service to our clients. Clients are our second priority. I think we remain extremely close…

Thank you, Mark, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to take you through the financial results for the first quarter 2020. So turning, please, to Slide 7. So starting with the revenue less pass-through costs by sector. In Q1, we saw the global integrated agencies saw like-for-like revenue decline of 2.6%, weighed down by decline in March of 6.6%, reflecting the impact of COVID-19 on our business and in line with our expectations. Our public relations business was down 1.4% on a like-for-like basis for the quarter and 4.4% in March and relatively more robust performance given our client needs for specialist PR services in a challenging time. Our specialist agencies were down 7.4% like-for-like, dragged down by a 15.2% decline in March, reflecting the project nature of this business. Overall, revenue less pass-through costs were down 3.3% on a like-for-like basis, reflecting a decline of 7.9% on a like-for-like basis for March. So turning now to Slide 8, please, and revenue less pass-through costs by region. North America was our best-performing region with like-for-like sales down 1.9% for the quarter and 3.6% in March, which compared to Q1 2019 where like-for-like sales were down 8.8%. So we think of this direction of travel as being encouraging. The U.K. was down 4.2% for the quarter, had a tough March, down 9.8%, reflecting the impact of lockdown in the second half of the month. Similarly, Western Europe was down 3.7% in the quarter and 9.6% in March, reflecting lockdowns in Italy for about 3/4 of the month, France and Spain for roughly half of the month and Germany for the last week of the month. Net sales were actually hardest hit in the rest of the business, down 4.6% in the quarter and 11.5% in March, reflecting a challenging quarter for…

Great. Thank you very much, John. And I'm going to try to give you a little bit more color and context on what we're seeing on Page 17 in terms of our people, our clients and our communities. So turning first to Page 18 on people. I think we have seen a really effective response to the lockdown. And by effective, I mean both a great degree of collaboration across the company and really an uninterrupted service to our clients over the period. A few points to work -- to make. Firstly, 95% of our people are now working remotely or working from home. I think a number of them, markets who're starting to think about going back to work, we're approaching that extremely cautiously. We've been very cognizant of the need to provide regular support and regular communications to our teams. We're doing regular town halls by market, by video. And I think one of the observations I'd make about the period is, whereas previously may have thought we had to fly to a market to talk to people, we're now realizing that we can achieve maybe not 100% on the same effect, but much the same as I talk to people over video. Each of our company CEOs is also leading the way in talking to their companies about what they're doing, and we're encouraging our teams and managers to hold regular communications. We've launched something called WPP TV, 4 days a week for 0.5 hour, where we feature some of the many talents we have across WPP and try to create a sense of community across the organization with mental well-being really a particular focus for us at the current time. And this is not an easy time for anybody. I don't think it's easy for people…

[Operator Instructions] And we will take our first question from Patrick Wellington from Morgan Stanley.

Yes. Couple of questions. Firstly, I think, John, you referred to material longer-term efficiency. Can you give us perhaps some idea of the scale of that? And to what extent a new pair of eyes and this very different situation makes you look at the WPP business model, which effectively is applying staff to projects? And then, secondly, whether this situation has led you to think that you could potentially further restructure your major networks. And then, Mark, I think your remarks about how efficiently and quickly your staff are working just kept reminding me of the phrase, faster, better, cheaper. Again, do you think there's a continuing working style change there in the future? And then, finally, just on working capital, reassuring in the first quarter. Can you tell us about the impact on customer payment terms, whether you see any further pressure and how you see working capital going for the year as a whole?

Okay. So I'll talk to you about -- to working and the networks, and John can talk about material long-term efficiency and working capital. So I think that there's work that would have taken 2 to 3 months that we're doing in a week, and I think we are learning new ways of working. And we have been learning those for some time. As we've pointed out to you in the past, we have a large number of people working on-site in our clients, and I think that will continue. So I think we will see some of the ways of working, not just working from home, but some of the faster ways of working continue in the future. And I think that, that will accelerate and that's a good thing. In terms of the networks, I think that the front office, if you like, the way in which we go to market is substantially correct. There may be some tidying up around the edges, but I think we want to look at sort of, what I'd say, the middle office, how we provide production services, media and technology, and there will be efficiencies there. And then the back office that John can get to and talk to both of those, John?

Yes. Thanks, Mark. Yes, look, I obviously, having been in the business for 3 months, starting to get my sort of head around the opportunity, but there's material opportunity to simplify and make this business more efficient. And as Mark says, across the front, middle and the back office, I think much of the work has been done, as Mark said, on the front office. But on the middle office and the back office, I think there's significant opportunity to go after. We've talked in the past about operations across HR, finance, procurement, property, IT, et cetera, as well as the middle office opportunity that Mark just referred to. We are actually in the process of trying to size the prize for that. So I can't give you details today on what we think the size of that opportunity will be, but that is work in progress. And once we've done that, we'll obviously report back to you as to where we see opportunity over the next 3 years or so. In relation to your question on working capital, understandably we are starting to see a few requests from some of our clients, particularly those in distressed sectors, looking for payment terms. We are, as you would imagine, trying to support our clients where we can. But as Mark has already highlighted, much of our client base is very robust in those sectors which haven't seen as big an impact in terms of COVID-19. And in fact, we were able in the quarter to deliver a relative improvement in working capital, actually lowering our debtor -- our percentage of outstanding debtors by 3 percentage points. So a fairly good improvement year-on-year. We obviously had a very good performance at the end of last year. I wouldn't want to get drawn on whether we think there will be a net inflow or net outflow this year, but I don't think it will be substantive either way, and I remain confident that there is a material opportunity to deliver further working capital savings, roughly 20% of our current balances are overdue. If you look at best practice, it's in single digits. So I remain confident there is further opportunity there. But at this stage, given all the uncertainty in the market going forward, I think it would be dangerous to try and predict or forecast what that opportunity might be.

And our next question comes from the line of William Packer from BNP Paribas.

It's Will. Firstly, the detail on the performance of the Chinese business has been very useful. Could you give us your view on how useful it is as a proxy for the rest of the business when we look into Q2? I'm thinking of factors like relative exposure to CPG, exposure to digital marketing versus traditional budgets and how that compares to your U.S. and European businesses. Secondly, thanks for the detail on the cost savings. Can you just confirm your thinking around furloughing now in your key markets? We're a number of weeks into the crisis. So can we conclude you will not use those schemes at scale and so there isn't much upside to the potential cost savings on that basis? And then, finally, any commentary on Chinese performance in April? Has it improved materially?

Okay. So why don't I tackle the first question about the nature of our business in China, and then John can talk to the next 2? I'm not sure how helpful I'll be on the third. Our Chinese business is, I'd say, one data point amongst others for what happened in March. It's not the only data point. And you can look at other markets and come -- at what they do. But I'd say our business in China is relatively media dominated, is very highly digital. But digital media, it's not -- the shift is not as simple as from analog to digital. You saw that in Google's results yesterday and what they said about the outlook. And in many cases, digital can be more impacted, because it's easier to move, than less impacted. We do have a relatively strong CPG business, but we also have a relatively strong automotive business. So I think there's a number of things that are the same about the business in China, the way it operates, and a number of things that are different. And I would to look at it and the other markets to draw your conclusions. I mean John, why don't you add to that and then talk about furloughing?

Yes. So obviously, I understand what's behind your question, trying to see whether the experience that we've seen in China is, in any way, likely to be reflective of what we may see in other economies. And I think the first observation to make would be, there are so many factors at play here. It's very difficult to draw too many conclusions from performance in any individual one country. But what I would say is that if you look at China, clearly, we saw an impact of 25% to 30% or so in March, and we've now seen substantive recovery from that position coming through in April. If you also look at what's happened in Western Europe, which, on average, has been impacted for about 2 months of March. In the main, we've seen a circa 10% to 15% impact on our net sales across Europe for 2 weeks or half the impact of the month. So if you sort of used very simple math and extrapolated that up to a full month, you might say that doesn't look dissimilar to the experience that we've seen in China for the month of March. What's important to highlight, though, is again, there are quite big discrepancies between some of these European markets. So if you look at a market like Spain, we've actually seen reasonably robust performance, which just goes to show that it is quite variable across different markets. So those are the facts as we see them today. Therefore, I guess, it's up to you to then decide taking those facts, what assertions you'd make as to what we're likely to see happening across Q2. If you looked at Italy, as another example, which was closed down for most of March, we saw a downturn of 24%. So you…

Just -- sorry, just to clarify I didn't mishear something. So you -- did you say there was a substantive recovery in April in China?

We are seeing -- as Mark has already highlighted in his slides, we have seen quite a sharp recovery in relation to the economy in China. I don't want to get drawn on specifics of WPP net sales, but you've seen through Mark's slide that the economy clearly has got back to work. Now again, you need to be cautious here because there are some countries where economies started to relax restrictions and have seen an increasing rise in cases. And so -- there's been debate in the press this morning around Germany and its potential to go into a further lockdown. So I think we need to be cautious, but we have seen a return to economic activity and a fairly rapid return in China over the last few weeks or so. As I said, I'm not going to get drawn on the specifics of WPP net sales, and we don't want to have to sort of start reporting on a monthly basis. But there are, nonetheless, some encouraging signs from an economic perspective. And in relation to your question on furlough schemes, it's our intention -- we're not, at this point in time, intending to take advantage of the U.K. scheme. That's not something that we plan to do. We are using furlough schemes in other geographies to some extent, so Spain and Italy as examples, but obviously, with our key market being -- one of our key markets being the U.K., we're not intending to use the scheme in the U.K. We have got a lot of flexibility around other cost savings. We're looking at 4-day working week. We've got the salary sacrifice. And indeed, in a few areas, we've gone towards permanent headcount. So that gives us a range of cost-saving opportunities that enables us to take costs out rapidly, but also be able to respond very quickly as and when the market returns. And an example, a good mechanism for that is the use of 4-day week. Obviously, you take the cost out pretty quickly. But if we need to step that up immediately when -- as and when the growth returns, we're able to do so. So we've got really a very flexible cost base, which will allow us to face into whatever economic scenario the market throws back at us.

Our next question comes from the line of Lisa Yang from Goldman Sachs.

So I appreciate, there's a very lack of visibility, especially in the second half, but you did mention your model the numbers, economic scenarios and your detailed cost action. Just wondering, like, John, if you can share with us what the scenarios are, like maybe what's the worst case versus best case. And out of all the cost-saving measures you've just talked about, like where do you see the most flex -- where do you see the most flexibility for this year? The second question is on the U.S. I thought it was quite helpful you gave the impact of COVID in Europe in the last 2 weeks. Could you maybe share the same information for the U.S.? I was actually quite surprised to see U.S. was only down 4% in March. So I'm just wondering whether it is due to the timing of cancellations or the turnaround that has been happening for WPP just progressing better than expected. And the last question is, in this environment, we're seeing more emphasis on budgets shifting to digital media and e-commerce. I'm just wondering, like, how do you guys think this will do to in-housing? Like, have you seen more or less in-housing recently? And what do you think will happen going forward? And how the WPP is positioned to capture the opportunity from that shift?

Okay. So why don't I start with the in-housing question, then John can take the first 2 questions. Look, I think that one thing I'd say in our relationship with our clients is they're much closer, I'd say, than they were 3 months ago. And I think others have made the same observation. And I think we're talking to CMOs and CSOs and indeed CFOs of our clients in a much closer way in helping them plan what they're doing. I think clients realize the importance of the work that we do and the judgment that we have about the mood of people, the tone of the conversation and the way in which they communicate. And I also think they recognize the value, the stronger value of a creative idea than the not-so-creative idea, I mean, there's been some parodies made of some of the client responses to COVID, and I have to think that, yes, it's a careful balance between seeing to help people and doing the right thing. So I think there is a value, to my mind, in having an external agency advise clients on their marketing. At the same time, we are working faster and closer and more quickly. And I think that the fact that we're working remotely has made, quite frankly, a lot of that easier. We're jumping on video calls rather than going to meetings. We're having daily updates rather than waiting a week, and the situation is so fluid that it's forcing us to work more quickly. And I think a large amount of that work will continue. And my final observation would be that I think a number of clients, and we have had 1 or 2 discussions with clients that have in-house agencies with the fixed costs attached with them,…

Yes. Thanks, Mark. So in terms of the economic scenarios that we've modeled, we've -- as I said -- as we've said, we've modeled the range from the most optimistic being a flat sales scenario for the year, which I think you can all see is unlikely to happen, all the way to the other end of the spectrum, which is a negative impact on net sales of between 35% and 40% for the full remainder, the 9 months of the remainder of this financial year. So as you can see, a fair range from very optimistic to very pessimistic. So those are scenarios that we've modeled. And against each of those key scenarios, we've identified cost savings that we would take out under all these different scenarios and have established various triggers in the business so that we have early warning indicators as to when we would start to take those costs out. So very clear on that, against all that range of scenarios. And against all of those scenarios, we have sufficient liquidity to run the business, and we're comfortable against our banking covenants. And so we've done a lot of work planning for the unknown, frankly, because we don't have a clear view as to what will happen over the 9 months ahead. But we are very clear we have a view as to what we would do and how we would respond in all of these different scenarios. So that -- hopefully, that answers your question there. In terms of the mix of the costs that we would take out, we've already taken immediate action 4 or 5 weeks ago to -- on the things like the salary freezing, salary sacrifices of the Board, discretionary spend, et cetera, et cetera. And that's already -- we already…

That was really helpful. Can I just have a very quick follow-up on your -- the economic scenarios? Like, do you think even in the worst-case scenario, you could maintain the sort of operational drop-through we traditionally see of about, like maybe 25%, 30%? And I guess, once the economy recovers next year, like, is it fair to assume the operational leverage will be way higher than that basically on the way up?

Look, I'm not going to comment too much or get drawn on the details of the drop-through. I don't think from what you're saying there's actually that's indicatively right. But what I would say is we have that ability, as I've already highlighted, through part-time working to take the cost out quickly if we need to, but also put that resource back in play if the market recovers, if and when the market recovers. So in that sense, that enables us to protect the drop-through or the impact on the net sales -- the decline in net sales has on the overall operating margin of the business.

Our next question comes from the line of Julien Roch from Barclays.

Yes. Two follow-up. On the cost, it seems the GBP 700 million to GBP 800 million is not a hard number, but depending on the revenue. And you gave us a very wide range of flat to minus 40% for the last 9 months. But can you help us on thinking about a cost saving range? So -- I don't know, maybe a level of savings at minus 5%, minus 10%, minus 15% organic, or the highest or the lowest number? That's my first question. Then the second question is on different world, big price in terms of efficiency. I know you don't want to give a number, but should we think about potentially having higher margin in a couple of years or you rather have a higher revenue growth and invest in talent, in pricing with clients to have a faster top line and not increase margin?

I mean John, why don't you...

Yes. I’ll have it. I think -- look, first and foremost, in relation to cost savings, the actions we've already taken have already, in effect, implemented cost savings of GBP 700 million to GBP 800 million. So those actions are already embedded in our business. In terms of giving you a range above and beyond that, against different scenarios, I don't want to get drawn in all that detail, but as I've already indicated, we've mapped out some fairly aggressive downside scenarios purely for scenario planning purposes, and against some of those scenarios, we've identified significant costs that we would need to take out of the business against those scenarios. And that's what gives me comfort that we've got sufficient liquidity, we don't breach our banking covenants, and equally, we can respond to our clients if and when the market recovers. But I don't want to get drawn into giving you all of those cost savings against the expected different scenarios. It's safe to say that we've done all that work, and we're confident we can take cost out should we need to. But just to be clear, the GBP 700 million to GBP 800 million that we announced 3 to 4 weeks ago, those actions have been taken and are already effectively embedded into our business. In terms of the pricing -- future pricing efficiency, and does that mean we have a higher margin in the future or higher revenue growth? I don't think, again, we would want to get drawn on that too much today. We know for sure that the whole -- the world is going to be a different place as we emerge from COVID-19, and the nature of our business will equally change as a consequence and where we decide to invest and how we…

Yes. And I think, John, to add to what you're saying on the margin versus growth question is what -- it is what we started to lay out in December 2018 as part of the new strategy. I think the target remains to get back to the 15%. Clearly, the time frame over which we need to do that, it's going to be -- we need to look at. But I think we need to prioritize margin. We need to prioritize margin over growth in the right way. And I think that, historically, perhaps you got the balance wrong. But we need to get that balance right.

And our next question comes from the line of Tom -- we have Adrien de Saint Hilaire.

I've got a few, please, if that's okay. First of all, compared to some of your peers, I think you're overweight towards the CPG category, which, as you said, is less cyclical. I just have 2 questions here. Why are we not seeing this in your overall, let's say, group number? And perhaps then second question, should you then expect to outperform the competition on the way up? Second question, you talked about a recovery in economic activity in China. But more broadly, what is normally the lag that you would expect between GDP growth and economic growth and your own fees? And thirdly, there were some press commentary recently that Google was looking to reduce marketing spending into the second half. Just curious, more broadly, what do you think the risk is that we have not yet seen the most and the majority of marketing cuts playing out in your numbers?

So I think, maybe I'll start, and John can add to them. I think on Consumer Packaged Goods, there are large number of moving parts, and I don't think you can draw one thing or another. I think that, clearly, CPG, technology, health and pharma have been relatively more resilient. But as you're well aware, Adrien, we may have a higher CPG share. Other companies have a higher health care share. So I don't think one can draw the negative implication, a negative implication from that, I mean, they have to look at that. On China, the question about GDP and our fees, I think that, that, again, I think that's a very complex relationship. And I don't think that we can give you a sort of equation to relate the 2 things. I think if you look back at '08 and '09, perhaps the link was slower. But I think the nature of the crisis that we're in at the moment is that everything has happened more quickly, and therefore, the timing link is much more uncertain. And I think it's uncertain in terms of how we come out the other side and depends a lot about how clients have visibility into recovery and how they plan. I think we can say from our experience in China that things do bounce back or do recover quite quickly. Albeit in China, we haven't yet seen them come back to previous levels. And on the third question, I didn't see the commentary on Google and they're a client, and we're not going to comment on Google's plans. You'd need to ask them that question. And I think we have said that we expect the second quarter to be tough and there's considerable uncertainty about the outlook for the third and fourth quarter, and I'm not sure we can add more to that at the moment.

Can I just ask... Sorry.

Maybe just to add on that a little bit in terms of the China question. And as Mark said, I think it is very complex. But again, it sort of depends on the nature of the work. So if you think -- an example of that is some of our PR work, we've seen that be relatively robust, actually, over the impact of COVID-19, whereas perhaps some of our more project-related work tends to go away very quickly and then come back very quickly when the market recovers, whereas perhaps the more creative side tends to be less volatile. And then you have the media spend, which sits somewhere in between the 2. So again, that's the -- it's both complex by geography and both complex by the nature of the service that we're providing to our clients as to the speed with which each of those either falls away or comes back when the market recovers.

Actually, maybe, Mark, I have a quick follow-up on my point about correlation with GDP. Would you say that your business today correlates more or less versus the broader media and advertising market compared to the previous recession?

Well, I think that the level of commission versus fee in our business has clearly -- the level of commission has declined and the level of fee has increased. So I'd say we're less correlated directly to advertising spend, but that doesn't mean that our fees are not also correlated to advertising spend, and it is correlated to activity in the business. I think there's also -- there's a number of parts of our business -- if you take e-commerce, if you take marketing technology, I mean, as we're talking to a client earlier this week that's a retailer and they're under some financial pressure, but they just signed off a major marketing technology investment program because they're convinced of the importance of putting this in place. So I think you are seeing clients sort of invest in the long term, and I don't think there's a straightforward -- there's really not a straightforward correlation, I could say, to that things that are more or less correlated. I think that you can see in our results that no sector or no company in the economy is not going to be impacted by this, and we tried to give you as much disclosure as we can in terms of what we've seen by sector and what we've seen by country both in a single month to give you as much sense of what's going on. And I think you should look at that and see what correlations you can draw between those marketing numbers and the GDP in those countries. I think that might be a helpful thing for you to look at.

Our next question comes from the line of Tom Singlehurst.

It's Tom here from Citi. A couple, actually. First one, there has been some -- well, there have been some reports from bodies like the IAB that the current environment is driving a sort of shift in emphasis away from performance marketing back towards sort of brand and mission-related marketing, which -- I mean, firstly, have you seen something similar? And does that have any consequences for the relative growth rate of creative versus media? That was the first question. And the second question is on the advertising -- the competitive landscape and the outlook there. I mean I think Lisa asked about in-housing and noticed a couple of sort of big in-house sort of creative mandate sort of going back out house again like Allstate. But I mean, just vis-à-vis smaller ad agencies and smaller ad agency groups, is this relatively easier for them to adapt to or relatively more challenging? And what do you think about the potential for consolidation longer term on the back of what's happening to the sort of smaller-scale competitors?

Yes. I think that -- thinking about the comment you made about the IAB, there's been a shift from performance to brand. I wouldn't say -- I wouldn't look at it like that. I'd say that clients are focused on driving ROI. Depending on the client situation, there are different ways of driving that ROI. If a client has something relevant to say to its customers about purpose or about brand, I think this is a good time for them to communicate it, and they would do that through brand channels. I think at the same time, if there are clients who are able to sell online, then they will shift -- they will spend money behind performance media. And there are a number of clients who are not able to sell online, who are not able to trade at all, but who will clearly cut their spend. So you saw in the comments about Expedia and Booking.com on what they're spending on digital media. So I think you are seeing within performance media the divergence by sector. And I think, again, within the brand media, you're seeing a divergence. So I don't think it's so straightforward to say that clients should continue to spend through downturns, but I do think that there are clients that can drive ROI by communicating at the moment. And I think you have seen some companies take advantage of their competitors being silent to spend. I think those companies that can drive sales will invest. And as we've said, given all of the innovation going in the world, if I were a client, I will be trying to figure out what's going on, how consumers are behaving, how they will respond and trying every innovation possible to figure out when things come back, how can I benefit from the upturn. So that's how I think about the shift in media. From a competitive perspective, I think there will be a premium in the future -- I mean, in society, in general, on resilience. There's been a lot of coverage in the press about leverage, about optimization, about efficiency and about building stronger buffers and stronger stocks, a bit like we had, if you think about it, during the financial crisis. And I'd say, one of the -- WPP is fortunate in some respects going into this that most of our clients are large and well-capitalized companies, and that they will come out the other side of this in a stronger position. So I think that there is a premium on resilience, financial resilience and operational resilience, and to some extent that, that comes with size, and the smaller companies can be more challenged. And I'm sure, just as in previous downturns, we had a clear degree of consolidation amongst the smaller companies. We may see a degree of consolidation amongst the smaller companies in this one, and I wouldn't like to comment on that further.

Our next question comes from the line of Matthew Walker from Crédit Suisse.

Just really following up on some of the previous questions, to be honest. The first one is on China. You talked about a substantive recovery in April. I guess, the avoidance of doubt, I wasn't entirely clear, but I could have missed something. Does that mean that April is less negative than March? Or does it mean that it was up year-on-year? And if it was, is that related to pent-up demand, stuff like the auto sales, et cetera? If you could just be a little bit clearer around that. And then the second question is back on the working capital. You highlighted that some of the weaker sectors that ask for extension of payment terms, but a lot of the trade press has been talking about even quite powerful companies, who are not in the vulnerable category, making demands for a quite significantly extended payment term. So the ambition to get better on working capital year-on-year is great and notable, and you have done it in Q1. So could you just explain the disconnect there or the apparent disconnect there because there does seem to be one based on many different trade press surveys, which, I guess, could be wrong. But maybe interesting to know what you're doing definitely or why you're so confident.

Okay. Well, I think -- I mean, we've given pretty extensive commentary on China. So I think to clarify the point, I think we'd say a recovery would be less negative. But John could add anything to that if he wants and also talk to you on working capital and what we're seeing from clients.

Yes. No, I think we said it on China already. I think we need to be careful not to get carried away. What we're saying is we've seen a rapid economic recovery, but it hasn't gone back to previous levels. And so that's clearly a less negative as opposed to a positive, and there's still significant uncertainty going forward. So we need to be careful we don't get too carried away. In relation to working capital, we don't -- we haven't sort of shared your observation that we're getting sort of requests for extended payment terms from those businesses that aren't under sort of financial distress and pressure. We just haven't seen that in our business. Now that may occur over time, but I think we've done a sensible job of holding the line and being firm in relation to our payment terms where we need to be, but equally recognizing where we can support our clients being appropriately flexible. But I don't recognize the broader trend that you were calling out. We certainly have seen -- we have had some requests in from some of our clients, and they will be in the obvious sectors, and the obvious clients, but not more broadly across the board. And if we were to receive such requests, I think we would defend them relatively robustly unless we saw an underlying need to have to support that particular client.

So I let you answer that question, John, but I didn't remember you saying that we've seen extensions either. So -- right.

Yes. So just to be clear as well, we have the ambition -- in a steady-state world, we have the ambition to improve our working capital position, and there is an underlying opportunity to do so. That's absolutely clear. What is also abundantly clear is we're not in a steady-state world, and so -- and we've deliberately removed guidance for the remainder of this year because of that uncertainty. So I don't want people to sort of say, we have an ambition to improve our underlying working capital position. We have plans in place to absorb stresses in terms of pressure on our working capital. But to be absolutely clear, the next 9 months remains uncertain, and we will have to manage our way through that carefully.

And our final question comes from the line of Richard Eary from UBS.

Firstly, I hope everyone is well. Just sort of one major question for me, which is sort of more qualitative, which is just what you provided today has been great in terms of color. I just wanted to try and actually look at maybe quality coverage on what you're seeing in demand for services and products and whether there's any -- been any sort of surprises, either positive or negative, that's come out in terms of demand for specific sort of services that you offer from the group, so whether that's media, creative, planning, digital. I mean you talked about PR has been probably more defensive, and I appreciate it does vary from clients. But I was just wondering whether you can add any more qualitative color for us.

Yes. I think I'll make a few observations. One is when I talk to our people, I'd say they are busier than ever, and I have that sense across the company. When we sent everyone home, if that's the right term, on March 16, I was concerned about the business' ability to maintain the tempo and the speed of operation with everyone working at this time. And I have to say, while it's not easy for people managing, I have been really impressed. And I've noticed no kind of downturn in the level of activity, and people are happy, busier than they've ever been. And I'm saying that's true in our media businesses, where people have been tremendously busy helping clients shift media commitments into higher ROI channels or moving them around on a year basis or looking at extending terms or picking through what they're going to do in sports. I'd say our public relations businesses are probably busier helping clients communicate with their people, communicate with their customers; our e-commerce activities are busier; our production businesses have been extremely busy getting work out, and you saw sort of a collage of the work. And if I think across our top 10 clients, I would say most, if not all of those clients, have launched some kind of new brand campaign or purpose-driven brand campaign on television in the last 6 weeks at record speed to talk to their customers about what they're doing. Our production business has been extremely busy in Hogarth. It's been a very valuable asset for us, both in its ability to use technology and to operate around the world. And we can now make commercials in China, for example, that we can use in other markets. That shows the value of having a global…

Can I just -- could I simplify that and say that, do you -- would you think that when you were going in...

I gave the wrong answer.

Yes. No, no, no. I was just wondering that -- if you look back a bit from today from where you were sitting sort of a month ago, would you say that the business has been more defensive than you thought? And that's a good thing. Admittedly, it does vary by sectors...

Yes. I think you're trying to draw me into financial conclusions that I think we've covered at length on this call. So I wouldn't want to add to that in a way to confuse them. I'd say that the business is operated very effectively, and I think that it's -- I'm more persuaded that what we do is valuable to our clients, and that there are going to be bigger opportunities when we come out of this to help clients navigate and innovate and connect with consumers in new ways. I think that's what I would say.

That was the final question, sir. Please continue.

Okay. Thanks very much, everyone. I think Richard's question enabled us really to summarize how we see the situation pretty clearly. So thank you all for listening. And John, myself, Peregrine, Fran and others are available to take questions. So thank you all.

Thank you. That does conclude today's conference. Thank you to everyone who's participated in today's call. You may now all disconnect.