'Business as usual' as Broadbent moves to quash Brilliant rumours
Brilliant Media has moved to quash uncertainty about its future this morning, after the news that nine of its 11 directors – including founders Steve Lane and Dave Moutrie – had left the board.
Managing director Chris Broadbent told The Drum: "The message is it is very much business as usual at Brilliant.
“The people who stepped down are all still working in the business. The truth is they stepped down as a result of our recent refinancing, as you know it can be difficult to do these deals if there is a load of stakeholders all needing to sign a piece of paper, so the reason was administrative.”
The refinancing involved the company's bank making another £2m available in the wake of Brilliant losing two of its largest clients DFS and ASDA.
Broadbent added: “The business is viable. It was profitable. It is still profitable. We are still expected to turnover £90m this year. And although we have had to cut out cost – losing around 12 members of the team – we still employ 100 people.
“DFS and ASDA did not represent billings of £100m. In fact DFS only spent £30m and the margin was small as you can imagine, and ASDA only spent £7m with us last year. Losing these accounts was a blow, but not the end of the world.”
Broadbent was speaking after the business issued a bullet point statement designed to put to rest significant industry speculation. It reveals that Brilliant feels let down by ASDA, which quit Brilliant giving 24 hours notice following the DFS news, and that the root of its financial issues could well be an earlier MBO deal which was struck with its founders.
The statement read:
Board has been reduced to facilitate short term operational changes, merely an administrative moveAll previous directors continue working within the business going forwardChris Broadbent continues as Managing Director, having moved into the post in 2010, leaving Matt Hatton running Manchester and Paul Bramwell running Birmingham officesSteve Lane and Dave Moutrie continue on a non-Exec basisOur recent refinancing deal
Successful refinancing of Brilliant Media Group has been enabled with additional £2m facility coupled to the management team writing off a considerable amount following 2009 MBO.Deal has been completed with support of existing lenders, who stay in place, putting an end to speculation about the future of the business following the recently announced loss of the DFS & Asda business.Statistics going forward
Brilliant billed around £140m in year to March 31st 2011, current forecast for 2011/12 year is £90m, based on retained client baseFollowing DFS news and press coverage, Asda sacked Brilliant with 24 hour notice, based on ‘significant uncertainty’ before refinancing deal could be announced – we are understandably rather keen to replace this business having been treated rather poorly in our view.Cost base has been reduced in Leeds with 12 redundancies announced over last weekBrilliant made a trading profit in 2010/11 of over £1m and is forecast to make in excess of that in 2011/12Brilliant has picked up accounts from MG, Triumph Motorcycles and Speedy Hire in last 2 weeksBrilliant remains the largest independently owned media specialist in the UK