Marketing Services Financial Intelligence

Four invests in Dotti’s public relations consultancy

fintellect — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 09:17:04 +0000

Four Communications Group, the public relations company chaired by its biggest shareholder Chris O’Donoghue, has acquired a 60% stake in the celebrity and charity public relations consultancy Colman Getty.

Prior to the deal Colman Getty was owned predominantly by its chief executive Dotti Irving. Other shareholding executives included managing director Liz Sich.

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Dentsu reduces projected gain on sale of Publicis shares

fintellect — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 09:01:14 +0000

Dentsu has made a slight reduction in its projected gain from the sale of shares in Publicis Groupe last week.

In a statement this morning the Japanese group said it expected its post-tax profit for the year to benefit by ¥1.8 billion or £14.2 million. Originally Dentsu predicted a gain of ¥2.1 billion (see Publicis and Dentsu part company).

Dotty accounting fails to cloud dotDigital’s progress

fintellect — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 10:25:42 +0000

The latest example of crazy accounting rules has failed to cloud the fact that AIM listed dotDigital Group increased its post-tax profit from £771,000 in the half year to 31 December 2010 to £1.2 million in the latest half year.

Revenue (gross income) earned by the digital marketing and search optimisation business was up by 33.1% and the normalised operating profit margin was 23.4%.

However, the latest accounting idiosyncrasy resulted in dotDigital reporting an operating profit sharply down at £340,000 from £1.0 million in the corresponding half year in 2010. And the operating profit margin slumped from 25.1% to 6.2% (see table).

MSQ sells Fourninety to Indian group

fintellect — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 06:55:11 +0000

The Media Square phoenix MSQ Partners has already shed one of its subsidiaries. Last week the Leeds based design and production business Fourninety was sold to the Indian group Basil Communications.

Cello’s shedding of Farm seen as a win-win deal

fintellect — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 20:47:23 +0000

The transfer of clients and personnel from Farm Communications to the independent multi-disciplined agency Inferno appears to have provided Cello Group with an opportunity to exit from a small above-the-line agency that was offering limited growth prospects. At the same time the deal provides Inferno with an opportunity to embrace some experienced personnel to resource its fast growing business.

Publicis and Dentsu part company

fintellect — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 09:04:44 +0000

Dentsu and Publicis Groupe have terminated the strategic partnership they established when Publicis acquired BCom3 in 2002. At the time, Dentsu had a big shareholding in BCom3 which was exchanged for a 15% stake in Publicis.

Big changes likely at Pixelpark after Publicis deal

fintellect — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 21:20:16 +0000

The decision by Publicis Groupe to buy Pixelpark at a valuation equivalent to almost 1.2 times annual revenue, despite the German group’s past losses, suggests that radical changes will be pursued once the deal is done.

Publicis has offered some soothing words in its offer document, published this week, but between the lines there are hints of more radical action to come.

Interpublic not anticipating big buyback of loan notes next month

fintellect — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 09:18:45 +0000

The Interpublic Group of Companies appears not to be expecting holders of a class of convertible loan notes to ask the company to buy them back as they are entitled to do between yesterday and 14 March, despite the relative low 4.25% interest coupon attaching to them.

Omnicom reports solid growth

fintellect — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 16:40:48 +0000

Omnicom Group continued its consistently profitable track record by reporting a 15% increase in post-tax profits available to shareholders for 2011. Revenue grew by 10.6% and this was augmented by an improvement in operating profit margin from 11.6% to 12%.

Sector share prices: February 2012

fintellect — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 20:59:33 +0000

The marketing services industry’s share price index outperformed the FTSE All-Share Index in the month to 12 February for the first time in eight months. The MSFI Index rose by 12.14% in the month while the FTSE All-Share Index achieved a far more modest increase of 3.21%.

Shares in only one company – Creston – lost ground in the month. That fall of 18.2% followed news that the company expected to report a downturn in profit for the year to 31 March, due to spending cutbacks and losses incurred at business start-ups (see Creston predicts profit decline for year to March 2012).

And although prices of shares in all other publicly listed marcoms companies improved, shares in all but two companies are still below the price being quoted a year ago. Aegis Group and Next Fifteen Communications Group are the only companies whose shares have made progress both in the year to date and in the latest month.

It is not particularly unusual for the MSFI Index to put on a bigger growth spurt than the FTSE All-Share Index when the market shows signs of recovery. This is simply because the marcoms sector is more volatile – prices fall more dramatically in gloomy times and tend to recovery more dramatically in better times. However, in recent years the recovery has rarely lasted long enough to make good the whole of the previous decline.

Star performers in the latest month were Adventis Group (up 487.5%) and WFCA Group (up 153.3%). Both companies have been suffering losses and staff defections and the price movement appears to have been due as much to speculative buying as to underlying hopes of a better trading performance.

Among other good performances were those of shares in Huntsworth (up 25.6% despite predicting a slight fall in profit – see Directors and profits in decline at Huntsworth), Motivcom (up 23.9%) and The Mission Marketing Group (up 19.9%). Presumably Motivcom and Mission are both expected to report some improvement in profits soon, although Motivcom was rather cautious last October.