Publicis shares fall as third quarter sales miss market forecasts

PARIS (Reuters) - Shares in Publicis (PUBP.PA) fell on Thursday after the French advertising group posted third quarter sales that came in below market forecasts.

Publicis shares were down 4.5 percent in early session trading, making the stock the worst performer on France's benchmark CAC-40 index (.FCHI).

Sales in the quarter ended September were up 1.2 percent on an organic basis to 2.264 billion euros ($2.67 billion), yet below forecasts from analysts polled by Reuters who had on average been expecting total revenue of 2.34 billion euros.

"Publicis' below forecast organic revenue growth may check the more positive sentiment on the agencies that had been seen post-Omnicom's Q3 results, which beat expectations in North America," analysts at brokerage Liberum wrote in a note.

"However, there are clear signs that the trend line is improving, with Publicis’s Q3 numbers showing an improvement over 1H," added Liberum, keeping a "hold" rating on Publicis.

(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by Maya Nikolaeva)