Marketing Services Financial Intelligence

The balance sheets of most publicly listed UK marketing groups appear to have remained fairly stable during 2011 despite the gloomy economic environment.

The three private equity investors that backed the merger of digital marketing group LBi International with Bigmouthmedia in 2010 will profit by over €70 million from selling their shares to Publicis – a gain of 102% over the two year period.

Last year saw further growth in revenues and profits among the largest publicly listed marketing groups around the world despite the economic environment, according to a new report. Revenues grew by 8.1% while post-tax profits grew by 29.5%.

Three changes in company law have been advocated to reduce the contentiousness of top executives’ pay such as that earned by WPP’s founder and chief executive Sir Martin Sorrell.

Further questions have been raised about the ever-increasing proportion of LinkedIn’s revenues that are being spent on sales and marketing.

It is becoming increasingly hard to take seriously the accounting rules made by the International Accounting Standards Board, according to an analysis published in "Marketing Services Financial Intelligence".

Chime Communications confirmed yesterday evening that long-term shareholder WPP has continued its recent buying of shares so that it now holds over 20% of Lord Bell’s group.

The notion that a public company making its debut on the stock market with a value in the region of $85-$100 billion should remain under the voting control of one person, however successful he may be, is hard to swallow.

Two-thirds of the revenue earned in 2010 by Chime Communications’ biggest public relations subsidiary Bell Pottinger Communications was derived from the Middle East, according to figures published in "Marketing Services Financial Intelligence".

A detailed analysis of the rise and fall of AIM listed marketing group Media Square suggests it is first and foremost a story of misjudged acquisitions some of which cost a lot to finance and often failed to generate the profits expected of them.