French advertising agency Publicis remains upbeat on its prospects for the rest of the year despite posting disappointing numbers for the second quarter, Publicis CEO Maurice Levy told CNBC on Friday.

Publicis posted organic growth of 1.6 percent in the second quarter, down from 4.1 percent in the first quarter.

“We have told the markets since February that our second quarter was expected to be weak, but we’ve also made very clear that third quarter will be much stronger, and we are relatively optimistic and quite confident on our ability to deliver on our numbers and on our forecast for third quarter,” Levy said.

The firm’s CEO said Publicis will not make a counter-bid for the British company Aegis, which the Japanese advertising powerhouse Dentsu has bought for 3.16 billion pounds ($4.19 billion). The buyout is regarded to be the second-largest outbound mergers & acquisitions deal this year by a Japanese company.

Publicis allowed itself to be ruled out by Dentsu on the deal because it wasn’t an operation that the firm needed, and because the price was too high, Levy said. But the deal is pushing Publicis to take the quality of its services, innovation, creativity to a new level, he added.

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