In February it emerged the Spanish industrial conglomerate Nueva Rumasa, a former client of Aegis Media, . It was reported that the client had not paid its media bills for up to two years.
Buhlmann, speaking this morning on a conference call, said: "We don't anticipate anything like that again."
Today (17 March), Aegis confirmed in its results that it was taking a £25.9m exceptional charge (£37m on a pre-tax basis) to cover the provision.
It excluded the charge from its underlying pre-tax profits, which rose 8% to £162.4m, though on a statutory reporting basis, its pre-tax profits fell 25.4% to £68m.
Buhlmann was bullish about Aegis Media's new business performance so far this year, describing it as "exceptional".
It has racked up $1.5bn (£929m) in net new business since the start of the year, including Home Depot in the US ($700m), Disney in Canada ($300m), Ergo in Germany ($100m), and Fastweb in Italy ($55m). Aegis also retained BMW in Spain and France ($100m in total) and Suzuki in the US ($20m).
In 2010, it picked up net new business worth $2bn (£1.2bn), and in its best ever year in 2009, it managed $2.7bn.
There is likely to be more activity on the acquisitions front, Buhlmann indicated, after Aegis' £207m purchase of Australia's Mitchell Communications last July.
Aegis would consider acquiring "small to medium-sized" operations in the future, he said. "Our history has been to do that and that's what we continue to focus on."
Nick Priday, chief financial officer for Aegis Group, said that he was not concerned about debt levels considering the Mitchell acquisition.
Strong operating cash flows in the second half of 2010 helped the company reduce its net debt from £398.4m at the end of June, to £331.3m at the end of the year. It had available undrawn credit facilities of £450m at the latter point.
Aegis said its "covenant positions remain robust" and that the company aims "to ensure that capital continues to be sensibly allocated and our cash pools remain well managed".
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