Global media and market research company Aegis Group is confident of the coming year, despite a broader downturn in the advertising market, according to its financial results this morning. It has reported a rise in pre-tax profits of 21.4% to £78.4 million and turnover of 19.2% to £5.7 billion. The figures are in line with analysts’ expectations.
Commenting on the results, chief executive Doug Flynn said: “2000 was a good year for Aegis with a record $2 billion of new media business won during the year. We continued to invest in our future, broadening both the scope and geographic reach of our business. Both media and market research demonstrated strong gains over the last year.”
Perhaps more importantly though, Flynn remains confident about the coming year at a time when many media companies are expecting, or indeed now experiencing, an advertising downturn: “The current year has started well and in line with our expectations. Aegis is well positioned to benefit from the trend toward increasingly international media planning and buying and research mandates, which leads me to be optimistic about our prospects for the year ahead,” he said
Aegis owns the Carat global media agency network. During the year Carat UK consolidated its position with the acquisition of Feather Brooksbank, the UK’s largest regional media agency. Among key client wins were PSA, Tiny Computers, Abbey National’s online Cahoot subsidiary, easyJet, Bank of Scotland and Grampian Foods. Aegis also owns a number of market research firms worldwide.
ABN Amro says the results contain few surprises, but that the outlook for the coming year is robust, with an expected global ad growth of 5.7%. “More importantly, the trend towards media unbundling and roster consolidation that enabled Aegis win a staggering $2.054 billion of new billings is set to accelerate, particularly in Europe where Aegis is strongest,” it said.
The group is to pay a dividend of 1.15p per share, up from 1.0p in 1999. Aegis stock was up 2¼p at 125¼p at 1:00pm today.
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