Sir Martin Sorrell: last year his company was 'staring into the abyss'
The world's biggest advertising group, WPP, saw profits fall by 11% to £663m ($1bn) in 2009 as the economic downturn bit hard into its business.
Chief executive, Sir Martin Sorrell, told the BBC that last year the firm had been "staring into the abyss".
He added that the corner had now been turned and that after cutting 14,000 staff last year - about one in 10 workers - it was now hiring again.
WPP said that it expected 2010 to be a more stable year.
That, though, was followed by the phrase in brackets: "famous last words".
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"Although 2009 was a brutal year overall the group adjusted its cost base, after a difficult first six months, to falling like-for-like revenues," the firm said.
WPP conceded that the group had been slow to react to significant declines in revenue in the first half of the year, suggesting staff cuts should perhaps have been more severe during that period.
However it admitted that more swingeing reductions might ultimately have damaged the business.
The figures were worse than had been expected, pushing shares 2.6% lower in early trading - one of the biggest fallers in London. But by mid-morning, they had recovered and were down just 4 pence at 620p.
Major events
Looking forward, Sir Martin said growth was expected to continue to come from the so-called Bric countries - Brazil, Russia, India and China.
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He singled out India in particular as somewhere that was experiencing a consumer boom.
But he said worries about unemployment and low growth meant consumers and clients were generally still cautious.
He hit out at corporations that had cut back on advertising spending saying that they wrongly believed that they could "cost-cut their way to prosperity".
But on a brighter note, he said the Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, the Asian games in Guangzhou, China and the FIFA World Cup in South Africa were among major events which WPP expect will bolster its revenue in 2010.
There was an indication that the year had started brightly as new net billings - or new business won - was $2bn in the first two months of the year, already half of the amount earned in the whole of 2009.
WPP, which includes advertising agencies such as Ogilvy & Mather and JWT, moved his headquarters to Dublin in 2008 for tax reasons.
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