Next Fifteen Communications Group (LON:NFC), the public relations consultancy, reported a 44% rise in profit before tax for the six months to end-January to £2.08m from £1.44m. The Company owns five independent subsidiary PR agencies that operate as autonomous businesses. It also owns two research businesses and a policy communications business. Between them these businesses have 43 offices in 19 countries. The Group focuses on digital public relations and the majority of the Group's clients are in the technology industry, and include global names such as IBM, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Facebook and Cisco. Non-technology clients include brands such as Coca-Cola, Boots, TOTAL, Dove, JCPenney and the Barclays Premier League.
According to today's statement, revenues were up by 2% to £34.2m from £33.5m. Earnings per share rose 51% to 2.58p. The group raised its interim dividend to 0.475p from 0.45p, which it said reflected its ability to meet its expectations for the full year. Chairman Will Whitehorn said, 'This was always going to be an unusual period for comparing results as the global recession didn't really hit our business until January 2009 and thus had little impact on the comparative period... That said, the business has now recovered to pre-recession revenue levels and is headed in a positive direction. Given current trading, the board is confident that we will meet our targets, which would result in a record year for the group.'
During the period, the group acquired New York-based PR consultancy M Booth & Associates and 55% of the marketing communications trading subsidiaries of Upstream Asia to create Bite Asia. It also acquired a further 30% of US policy communications business 463 Communications, taking its stake to 70%, and created a new digital consultancy, Project Metal. The group finished the period with net debt of £1.43m. It said it remains acquisitive, though its focus remains on growing its existing businesses and improving overall margins.
For the full year the group is expecting net margins of just below 10%, bringing it back towards pre-recession levels. It is also expecting to see its balance sheet strengthen further with positive cash flows eliminating its net debt.
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