WPP Share News (WPP)

LONDON, March 7 - Welcome to the home for real-time coverage of European equity marketsbrought to you by Reuters stocks reporters and anchored today by Julien Ponthus. Reach him onMessenger to share your thoughts on market moves: julien.ponthus.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net AD AGENCIES WPP, PUBLICIS HIT BY P&G SPENDING CUT (0906 GMT) It's the latest bit of bad news for advertising giants WPP and Publicis,whose shares are among the notable fallers today. Procter & Gamble is reported to be cutting its spending on ad agencies by $1.25 billion overthe next three years, aiming, according to the Telegraph, to "take back control" (where have weheard that before?) from the big agencies and invest instead in internal analytics. Digital disruption of the advertising model has put ad agencies under increasing pressure inrecent years. Below you can see that 2017 was the first year in many that WPP's shares didn'tfollow the market higher, as bigger corporate budgets stopped automatically translating intomore ad agency spending. (Helen Reid) ***** OPENING SNAPSHOT: TRADE WOES WEIGH, ROLLS ROYCE SHINES (0821 GMT) Shares across Europe are falling and nearly all sectors are in the red this morning afterGary Cohn's resignation reignited concerns over trade wars. But on the corporate front there are some outstanding performers, particularly among UKfirms, which could be helping the FTSE 100 outperform European peers. Rolls Royce shares are up 10.6 percent after the engine maker reported strong resultswith profit beating expectations. Smurfit Kappa is also a top gainer, up another 3.7 percent after having shot up 20percent on Tuesday. Its suitor International Paper confirmed it had proposed 8 billioneuros for the company. Meanwhile ad agencies' shares are falling, with traders pointing to an FT report thatProcter & Gamble is to cut ad agency spending by $1.25 billion over the next three years. Publicis and WPP are both suffering, down 2.4 percent and 1.7 percent. (Helen Reid) ***** COMPANY NEWS MORNING HEADLINE ROUND-UP: They’re back. Trade war fears made a comeback last night when Donald Trump made freshcomments on tariffs and his economic adviser Gary Cohn, seen as a bulwark against protectionistforces within the administration, resigned. European futures are lower, in line with Asian indexes and U.S. futures which are also innegative territory. Wall Street closed too early to digest the news. So it’s mainly about politics today but there’s still some corporate news to animate thesession, including International Paper's confirmation of its proposed takeover of Smurfit Kappa:Telecom Italia promises higher investor returns under 3-yr digital pushRolls-Royce 2017 profit beats, cautious on this yearSmurfit Kappa rejects International Paper's $10 bln bidSAP execs see margin gains beyond 2020 as cloud costs subsideDeutsche Post DHL eyes further profit increase in 2018RTL sees revenues growing 2.5-5 pct in 2018Novartis, U.S. partner plan remote trials to boost participationUK insurer esure's full-year pretax profit rises 35.6 pctItaly's Carige says can't meet new investor's board seat requestRBS reaches $500 mln settlement with New York over mortgage securitiesYNAP in line with 5-year plan, core profit margins to rise in 2018 -CEO(Julien Ponthus and Tom Pfeiffer) **** EUROPEAN FUTURES OPEN LOWER AS TRADE WAR FEARS SPREAD (0710 GMT) European futures have opened lower as fears that new U.S. tariffs could ignite a trade warspread to Europe: (Julien Ponthus) ***** MORNING CALL: EUROPE SEEN OPENING LOWER AS TRADE FEARS RETURN (0617 GMT) Fears of an imminent trade war had eased during the previous session, allowing shares torecover but the resignation of White House economic adviser Gary Cohn, seen as a bulwark againstprotectionist forces within the Trump administration, means we are back where we were. Financial spreadbetters expect London's FTSE to open 18 points lower, Frankfurt's DAX down36 points and the Paris CAC down 16 points at the open. (Julien Ponthus) **** (Reporting by Danilo Masoni, Helen Reid, Kit Rees and Julien Ponthus)