Hasgrove predicts £1.6m profit and admits 'difficult' start to year for the Chase
Communications group Hasgrove has said that it expects to report a gross income of around £13.7m for the first half of its financial year, with an operating profit of around £1.6m.
The Group’s digital and communications business delivered a gross income of £8m and an operating profit of approximately £1m, a fall of £200,000 on 2010.
The fall in profit is due to a ‘difficult start to the year’ for design businesses The Chase and Landmarks, with The Chase seeing a drop of £400,000 in profit.
The Chase, it is reported, struggled due to delayed spend by major clients, with annualised cost savings of £400,000 being implemented from 1 July. The report however, says that the agency picked up ‘a number of new clients’ while long-term clients had started to spend once again.
The group also reported that Amaze and Interact was able to replace the lost public sector revenue from the end of the first half of last year, with Amaze having won ‘significant pan-European and global accounts’.
Intranet business Interact was also able to generate more sales in the first half of the year than for the whole of 2010 and has also begun to marketing itself in the US.
The group’s net debt increase to £7.4m from 30 Junes, partly due to earn-out payments, adverse currency movements and a move to a new office in London.
Rod Hyde, group chief executive, said: "Following the sale of Interel, the Group is now a focused digital and communications business.”
Hyde added: "Investments in intellectual property, people and office relocations are starting to show results. Interact generated more intranet sales in the first half than in the whole of 2010 and following the announcement of Unilever joining the client roster, Amaze has won further significant pan-european and global accounts."