At the company's annual general meeting today, chief executive Alain de Pouzilhac told investors the advertising firm was looking ahead to a good year after a poor performance in 2003.
"We are going to have a very strong improvement in profitability, not a strong improvement, a very strong improvement," he said.
Full year revenues at Havas fell by 17.2% during 2003 from €1.35bn (£900m) to €1.66bn, and the company's operating margin dropped to 8.3%. However, it said organic growth for the first quarter of the year was up by 0.7% in the first quarter of 2004, compared with a fall of 3.8% in the fourth quarter of last year, and that it saw encouraging signs in some markets -- although the UK was still in decline.
Full-year revenues at the company, which also owns Anrold Worldwide and the Media Planning Group, fell by 17.2% from €1.99bn to €1.66bn.
Shares in the company, traded on the Paris Bourse, rose by 1.4% today to trade at €4.30.
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