NEW YORK — Omnicom Group, which owns numerous PR firms including FleishmanHillard, Ketchum and Porter Novelli, has reported PR revenue of $1.375bn for 2016, a 2.8% organic increase on PR revenues in 2015.

Growth was boosted by PR firm performance in 4Q of 2016, up 7.7% on an organic basis, making it Omnicom's fastest-growing segment during the quarter, ahead of specialty agencies (+5.7%) and advertising (+4.6%).

On a reported basis, Omnicom's PR revenues grew 3.4% in 2016 and 8.7% during 4Q.

Omnicom CEO John Wren pointed to "positive" public relations growth in North America and UK during 4Q 2016. However, he also noted that this was in comparison to the 4Q of 2015, when Omnicom's PR firms declined 6.9% on an organic basis.

"Our public relations businesses performed well across most of our markets, coming off the relatively easy comp of Q4 of 2015," said Wren. "Our PR discipline was also helped a bit in the quarter by some work related to the election."

The 2016 performance comes after Omnicom's PR revenue declined by 1.4% in 2015. The group named Karen van Bergen as CEO of the newly-created Omnicom Public Relations Group in early 2016, overseeing the company's 10 PR firms.