Aegis Media's organic growth of 8.5% beat Carat's estimates that global adspend was up by 6% in 2004.
Over the year, Aegis Media's combined operations increased turnover by 5.5% to £474.6m in 2004.
In the US, Aegis Media's new-business billings for the year were £937m compared with £379m in 2003, helped by winning a place on Procter & Gamble's roster in North America.
Carat Europe won Expedia in France and the pan-European Lego and Deutsche Post accounts.
Vizeum was boosted by two major pan-European account wins in Panasonic and Heinz. Vizeum extended its presence in Asia-Pacific by opening new offices in China and Taiwan in 2004. The agency plans to reach the US as opportunities arise.
Synovate, Aegis' market research business, ended the year with revenue up 24.4% to £272.4m from a strong order book, significantly ahead of 2003. This comes after recent criticism of former chief executive Doug Flynn's investments in market research, which some industry experts say have not paid off.
Marketing Services Financial Intelligence said that the results today confirmed another year of poor returns on the group's investment in Synovate.
"While revenues from this source expanded by 24.4% in 2004, it is estimated that the profit, after allowing for interest, represented a pre-tax return of about 5% on the cost of companies acquired.
"This shows a welcome improvement on last year's 2.5% return but remains well below what should be achievable to justify the cost. After allowing for amortisation of goodwill arising from the various research acquisitions, the return remained negative," MFIS said.
The integration of ISIS research into Synovate's healthcare network created a number of opportunities for growth. Likewise, the acquisition of US customer satisfaction agency Symmetrics in March 2004 represented 16% of the company's research spend because "keeping customers brands loyal is the holy grail of marketers".
Robert Lerwill, chief executive of the Aegis Group, said: "These figures represent an excellent performance across the board with a significant contribution from initiatives undertaken in media and research over the last few years.
"The company's recent investment strategy has created new market opportunities and new revenue streams, which are making an impact on our results."
If you have an opinion on this or any other issue raised on Brand Republic join the debate in the .
.jpg)
.jpg)