Organic growth for the second quarter was a positive 24.4%.
EBIT was $568 million in the quarter, an increase of 67% versus the second quarter of 2020.
Q2 2021 included a gain of $50.5 million from the sale of ICON International in early June.
In Q2 2020, EBIT included $278 million of charges related to the repositioning actions.
Excluding gains and charges, EBIT margin was 14.5% in the quarter compared to 12.2% in Q2 2020.
Excluding the sale of ICON, our six months 2021 EBIT margin was 14% which is in line with our EBIT margin of 13.9% for the first six months of 2019.
Net income was $348 million in the second quarter, an increase of 75% from the second quarter of 2020 and earnings per share was $1.60 per share, an increase of 74%.
The net impact on the gain on the sale of ICON, which was offset by an interest expense charge related to the early retirement of debt increased earnings per share in Q2 2021 by $0.14 per share.
The U.S. was up just shy of 20% in the quarter.
Other North America was up 37.1%, the U.K. was up 23.8% with all disciplines in double-digits.
Overall growth in the Euro and non-Euro region was 34.5%.
In Asia Pacific, we had 27.9% increase with all major countries experiencing double-digit growth.
Latin America was up 20.8% and the Middle East and Africa increased 42.8%.
By discipline, all areas were up year-over-year as follows: Advertising and media 29.8%; CRM Precision Marketing, 25%; CRM Commerce and Brand Consultancy 15.2%; CRM Experiential 53%; CRM Execution and Support 22.7%; PR 15.1% and Healthcare 4.5%.
For the first half of the year, we generated approximately $800 million in free cash flow.
In the second quarter, we repurchased $102 million in shares.
In late April, we issued $800 million of senior notes due in 2031.
The proceeds from this issuance together with cash on hand were used to repay $1.25 billion of senior notes due in 2022.
Omnicom's global creative networks BBDO, DDB, and TBWA placed in the Top 10 of the network over the festival competition taking the highly coveted title, AMV BBDO was named Agency of the Festival.
Omnicom media agencies, PHD and OMD earned first and second place respectively in the Media Network of the Festivals competition and overall, more than 160 Omnicom agencies from 45 countries won more than 180 Lions.
For example, several of our U.K. agencies have joined Ad Net Zero, the industry's initiative to achieve real net zero carbon emissions from the development, production, and media placement of advertising by the end of 2030 and we are a founding member of Change the Brief Alliance, which calls for the agencies and marketers to harness the power of their advertising to promote sustainable consumer choices and behaviors.
Another critical area we have intensified our efforts over the past 12 months is DE&I.
Currently, our Board is the most diverse in the S&P 500 with six women and four African American members including our Lead Independent Director.
We're also pleased that three of our 12 network and practice area CEOs are people of color or female.
While it is still too early to measure our progress, I'm pleased to report that a preliminary review of our employee diversity in the United States shows a meaningful increase in the number of diverse employees as of June 30th, 2021 compared to the end of 2020.
Organic growth for the quarter was 24.4% or $682 million, which represents a significant increase compared to Q2 of 2020 which reflected the onset of the pandemic when revenue declined by 23% or $855 million.
In addition, in early June, we completed the disposition of ICON, our specialty media business, which resulted in a pre-tax gain of $50.5 million.
In addition to our organic revenue growth of 24.4% for the quarter, the impact of foreign exchange rates increased our revenue by 5.4% in the quarter, higher than we anticipated entering the quarter as the dollar continued to weaken against most of our larger currencies compared to the prior year.
The impact on revenue from acquisitions, net of dispositions decreased revenue by 2.2% primarily related to the sale of ICON.
As a result, our reported revenue in the second quarter increased 27.5% to $3.57 billion from the $2.8 billion we reported for Q2 of 2020.
Turning back to Slide 1, our reported operating profit for the quarter increased to $568 million including the $50.5 million gain on the sale of ICON.
As you remember, our Q2 2020 results included a $278 million COVID-19 repositioning charge, which included severance actions, real estate lease impairments and terminations and related fixed asset charges as well as a loss on the disposition of several small non-core underperforming agencies.
Our operating margin for the quarter was 15.9%, up significantly from Q2 2020 even after excluding the gain on the sale of ICON in the current period and adding back the repositioning charge recorded in Q2 of 2020.
Our reported EBITDA for the quarter was $590 million and EBITDA margin was 16.5%.
Excluding the $50.5 million gain on the ICON disposition, EBITDA margin for Q2 2021 was 15.1%.
EBITDA margin in Q2 of 2020 after adding back the $278 million repositioning charge, was 12.9%.
We've also included a supplemental slide on Page 15 that shows the 2021 amounts presented in constant dollars to exclude the effects of the year-on-year FX changes.
They increased by about $300 million versus Q2 of 2020 or $220 million on a constant dollar basis driven by the increase in our overall business activity.
We would also note that the Q2 2020 salary and service cost amounts were reduced by reimbursements received from government programs of $49.2 million.
Third-party service costs increased by $275 million or $242 million on a constant dollar basis.
Occupancy and other costs, which are not directly linked to changes in revenue, increased by $4 million.
Excluding the impact of FX, these costs declined by $10 million in the quarter as we continued our efforts to reduce infrastructure costs and we benefited from a decrease in general office expenses as the majority of our staff continue to work remotely in Q2.
SG&A expenses increased by $21 million or $18 million on a constant dollar basis, again related to the return to more normal activities in the quarter.
And finally, depreciation and amortization declined by $3.6 million.
Net interest expense in the second quarter of 2021 increased $26.3 million period-over-period to $73.5 million.
Because of our solid working capital and cash flow performance during the pandemic period, in Q2 we determined we no longer needed the liquidity insurance we added in early April 2020 when we issued $600 million in debt and added a $400 million 364-day revolving credit facility.
In May, we issued $800 million of 2.6% senior notes due 2031.
In June, the proceeds from the issuance of the 2.6% notes plus cash on hand were used to redeem early all of our outstanding $1.25 billion 3.625% notes that were due in May of 2022.
Gross interest expense in the second quarter of 2021 increased $26.6 million resulting from the loss we recognized on the early redemption of all the outstanding $1.2 billion of 3.625% 2022 senior notes.
Additionally, the impact of this refinancing activity reduced our leverage ratio to 2.2 times at June 30th, 2021 and is expected to result in lower interest expense on our debt in the second half of approximately $6 million as compared to the prior year.
Our effective tax rate for the second quarter was 24.9%, down a bit from the effective tax rate we estimated for 2021 of between 26.5% to 27% primarily due to nominal taxes recorded on the book gain on sale.
Earnings from our affiliates was marginally negative for the quarter while the allocation of earnings to minority shareholders of certain of our agencies increased to $23.4 million.
As a result, we reported net income for the second quarter was $348.2 million.
While we restarted our share repurchase program during the second quarter, our diluted share count for the quarter increased slightly versus Q2 of last year to 217.1 million shares resulting from the year-over-year increase in our share price and the increase in common stock equivalents included in our diluted share count.
As a result, our diluted earnings per share for the second quarter was $1.60 versus the loss of $0.11 per share we reported in Q2 of 2020.
The gain on the sale of ICON and the loss on the early redemption of the 2022 senior notes resulted in a net increase of $31 million to net income or $0.14 to EPS.
As we previously discussed, the prior year period included the net impact of the repositioning charges which reduced last year's second quarter net income and earnings per share by $223.1 million and a $1.03 respectively.
Now returning to the details of the changes in our revenue performance on Slide 4, our reported revenue for the second quarter was $3.57 billion, up $771 million or 27.5% from Q2 of 2020.
Turning to the FX impact, on a year-over-year basis, the impact of foreign exchange rates increased our reported U.S. dollar revenue by 5.4% or $150.8 million, which was above the 3.5% to 4% increase that we estimated entering the quarter.
In light of the weakening of the U.S. dollar compared to 2020, assuming FX rates continue where they currently stand, our estimate is that FX could increase our reported revenues by approximately 1.5% for the third quarter and 1% for the fourth quarter resulting in a full year projected increase of approximately 2.5%.
The impacts of our acquisition and disposition activities over the past 12 months primarily reflecting the ICON disposition as well as the recent acquisitions of Archbow and Areteans, during the second quarter of 2021 resulted in a net decrease in revenue of $62 million in the quarter or 2.2%.
Based on transactions that have been completed through June 30th of 2021, our estimate is the net impact of our acquisition and disposition activity for the balance of the year will decrease revenue by between 6% to 7% for the third and fourth quarters resulting in a full year reduction of approximately 4%.
Our organic growth of $682 million or 24.4% in the second quarter reflects strong performance across all of our major geographic markets and across all of our service disciplines.
Turning to our mix of business by discipline on Page 5, for the second quarter, the split was 56% for advertising and 44% for marketing services.
As for the organic change by discipline, advertising was up nearly 30% primarily on the growth of our media businesses reflecting a strong recovery of activity within the media space.
CRM Precision Marketing increased 25%.
CRM Commerce and Brand Consulting was up 15.2% but the performance within this discipline was mixed as our shopper marketing agencies cycled through the effects of recent client losses.
While organic revenue for CRM Experiential was up over 50%, it should be noted that events were virtually shut down as lockdowns took effect in March and April of 2020.
CRM Execution & Support was up 22.7% reflecting a recovery in client spend compared to Q2 of 2020 in our field marketing and merchandising and point-of-sale businesses while our non-for-profit businesses continue to lag.
PR was up 15.1% coming off pandemic lows in 2020.
And finally, our Healthcare discipline was up 4.5% organically.
Now turning to the details of our regional mix of businesses on Page 6.
You can see the quarterly split was 51.5% in the U.S.; 3.3% for the rest of North America; 10.6% in the U.K.; 18.6% for the rest of Europe; 12.5% for Asia Pacific; 2% for Latin America; and 1% [Phonetic] for the Middle East and Africa.
In reviewing the details of our performance by region on Page 7, organic revenue in the second quarter in the U.S. was up nearly 20% or $316 million.
Our media agencies excelled in the quarter as did our CRM Precision Marketing agencies and our PR agencies and our Commerce and Brand Consulting category rebounded to growth in the quarter while our Healthcare agencies are flat versus last year when organic growth was 3.7% in the quarter.
Outside the U.S., our other North American agencies are up 37% driven by the strength of our media and precision marketing agencies in Canada.
Our U.K. agencies were up 23.8% organically led by the performance of our CRM Precision Marketing, Advertising, and Healthcare agencies.
The rest of Europe was up 34.5% organically.
In the Eurozone, among our major markets, France, Germany, Italy and The Netherlands were up greater than 30% organically while Spain was up in the mid-single digits.
Outside the Eurozone, organic growth was up around 35% during the quarter.
Organic revenue performance in Asia Pacific for the quarter was up 27.9% with our performance from our agencies in Australia, Greater China, India, and New Zealand leading the way.
Latin America was up 20.8% organically in the quarter with our agencies in Mexico and Colombia growing more than 20% and Brazil was up almost 17%.
And lastly, the Middle East and Africa was up over 40% for the quarter.
On Slide 9, you can see that the first six months of the year, we generated nearly $800 million of free cash flow excluding changes in working capital, up over $70 million versus the first half of last year.
As for our primary uses of cash on Slide 10, dividends paid to our common shareholders were $292 million, up about $10 million when compared to last year due to the $0.05 per share increase in the quarterly payments effective with the dividend payment we made in April.
Dividends paid to our non-controlling interest shareholders totaled $39 million.
Capital expenditures in the first half of 2021 were $23 million.
Acquisitions, which include our recently completed transactions as well as earnout payments, totaled $36 million and stock repurchases were $95 million, net of the proceeds from our stock plans reflecting the resumption of our share repurchases during the second quarter of this year.
As a result of our continuing efforts to prudently manage the use of our cash, we were able to generate $311 million of free cash flow during the first half of the year.
Regarding our capital structure at the end of the quarter as detailed on Slide 11, our total debt is $5.31 billion, down about $410 million since this time last year and down just over $500 million compared to year-end 2020.
Both changes reflecting the early retirement in Q2 of 2021 of $1.25 billion of 3.65% senior notes which were due in 2022 partially replaced with the issuance of $800 million of 2.6% 10-year notes due in 2031.
In addition to the net reduction in debt of $450 million from the refinancing, the only other meaningful change was the net balance for the LTM period, was an increase of approximately $65 million resulting from the FX impact of converting our EUR1 billion denominated borrowings into U.S. dollars at the balance sheet date.
Our net debt position as of June 30th was $922 million, up about $710 million from last year-end, but down $1.5 billion when compared to where we stood 12 months ago.
The increase in net debt since year-end was a result of the typical uses of working capital that occur over the first half of the year totaling just under $1.1 billion which was partially offset by the $311 million we generated in free cash flow in the first half of the year.
Over the past 12 months, the improvement in net debt is primarily due to our positive free cash flow of $790 million, positive changes in operating capital of $525 million, and the impact of FX on our cash and debt balances which decreased our net debt position by $154 million.
As for our debt ratios, as a result of our overall operating improvement versus Q2 of 2020 and our recent refinancing activity, we've reduced our total debt to EBITDA ratio to 2.2 times and our net debt to EBITDA ratio to 0.4 times.
And finally, moving to our historical returns on Page 12, the last 12 months our return on invested capital ratio was 25.9% while our return on equity was 46.8%, both significantly better than our returns from 12 months ago.

Summary:
Organic growth for the second quarter was a positive 24.4%.
Net income was $348 million in the second quarter, an increase of 75% from the second quarter of 2020 and earnings per share was $1.60 per share, an increase of 74%.
While it is still too early to measure our progress, I'm pleased to report that a preliminary review of our employee diversity in the United States shows a meaningful increase in the number of diverse employees as of June 30th, 2021 compared to the end of 2020.
Organic growth for the quarter was 24.4% or $682 million, which represents a significant increase compared to Q2 of 2020 which reflected the onset of the pandemic when revenue declined by 23% or $855 million.
In addition to our organic revenue growth of 24.4% for the quarter, the impact of foreign exchange rates increased our revenue by 5.4% in the quarter, higher than we anticipated entering the quarter as the dollar continued to weaken against most of our larger currencies compared to the prior year.
As a result, our reported revenue in the second quarter increased 27.5% to $3.57 billion from the $2.8 billion we reported for Q2 of 2020.
Our operating margin for the quarter was 15.9%, up significantly from Q2 2020 even after excluding the gain on the sale of ICON in the current period and adding back the repositioning charge recorded in Q2 of 2020.
As a result, our diluted earnings per share for the second quarter was $1.60 versus the loss of $0.11 per share we reported in Q2 of 2020.
Our organic growth of $682 million or 24.4% in the second quarter reflects strong performance across all of our major geographic markets and across all of our service disciplines.