As the industry consolidates and bets on scale, Havas is content being the midsize challenger. “I don't want to say bad things about my competitors, but when I compare Havas results and some of our peers, I'm not sure that in today's world scale is an advantage,” CEO Yannick Bolloré told ADWEEK ahead of the holding company’s second quarter earnings call on Thursday. Havas posted 2.5% organic growth in the second quarter, with North America up 6.4%. Though most of its peers have yet to report this quarter, they top Publicis' Q2 results and beat out WPP and Omnicom’s Q1 performance in the region.  “Our positioning around being the strongest challenger clearly resonates for American clients,” Bolloré said.  That challenger branding is bolstered by a new joint venture with Horizon Media, which lends media heft to Havas in North America while giving Horizon a stronger foothold outside of the region. Though it's early days, Bolloré pointed to recent wins like Farmers Insurance and Sketchers as signs that the model is starting to work.  Still, Havas has been at the center of industry consolidation rumors for months, from a reported stake in WPP to speculation around a big acquisition or sale after the Bolloré family took a majority stake in the business in February. Bolloré shrugged off the rumors, doubling down on his family’s investment in Havas as a bet on its future. This interview has been edited and condensed for conciseness and clarity. ADWEEK: How do you feel about Havas' performance this quarter and in the first half? YANNICK BOLLORE: I feel satisfied. Despite this, let's say, uncertain geopolitical context, we managed to achieve our guidance. I'm happy with the work that the team has been doing. All the lights are green.  I'm not the kind of individual to brag about the results, but I'm satisfied. How big of a drag do you see the Middle East being on Havas’ performance for the rest of the year? For us, it's not big. It's 1.6% of our global revenue, but we've seen a decline, of course. Then there are all the repercussions of what's happening in the Middle East and the rest of the world with the oil prices, travel. That’s hard to predict.  We took as an assumption that the crisis will continue, and we should achieve our guidance. It's not the best performance of our history, but it's a good performance in the context. Havas is growing revenue in North America at 7% at a time when it’s been challenging for some of the other holding companies. How do you explain that? There has been a lot of talk in the industry about consolidation, being the largest company. I think our clients like to have agencies that are agile, nimble, proactive, motivated. They like this challenger mindset. I think our scale is helping—especially in the U.S., which is a very large market, and you have very large clients that are becoming very small for the other holding companies. For us, they are material, and they know we are taking care of them. They have easy access to the executive committee of the U.S., easy access to me.  Is Havas the right size for this new competitive set that’s taken shape in the industry? I've been asked a lot in the past two years about our scale, and it reminds me of when I became CEO of Havas. It was the end of August 2013. It was like, three or four weeks after Omnicom announced its merger with Publicis. We love being the challenger. We have the scale at the same time, because we are not a small company. [We have] 23,000 employees across the globe in every communication discipline. So I think we are perceived as being smaller than we are in reality. I think it's good, because it means we are agile and powerful at the same time. What about in media? Is the Horizon deal filling a gap? We already secured the first multi-market win. We had some small wins in some markets on which we've extended Horizon Media clients. We are satisfied. It's still early. The network is six months old, maybe seven months. But the relationship is there. There is a good chemistry between the teams. The culture is very similar, and we have the same approach on data and tech.  Havas made a few smaller acquisitions this year. Do you kind of see Havas as more of a buyer, or are there things that you're looking to sell? In the first half, we have invested $71 million (€63 million) on acquisitions. We have announced between $57 million and $115 million (€50 million and €100 million) a year in terms of acquisition numbers. [We made] eight acquisitions in our first half. Four of those are for our sports marketing network. We’ve just been awarded the organization of the Paris Marathon a few weeks ago. Two acquisitions are for our corporate PR network, and two others—one in data and the other in luxury. It's a small company organizing runway shows.  I think we'll have some acquisition in the second half as well. There's been specul