±±¾©Èü³µpk10

As a whole, the group achieved earnings before tax and interest of £2.05m on revenue of £52m for 2008.

Howitt, the group's direct mail printing arm, contributed the bulk of this, with pre-tax profits of £1.02m for 2008, a 79% increase on 2007.

Lateral Group CEO Nick Dixon attributed the performance to new business from existing clients such as Domino's and home improvement company Everest.

"In the current economic climate we are pleased with our results", Dixon said. "Each company has made a significant contribution to our financial performance."

Lateral Group was formed last year as a holding company to house Howitt, purchased by Dixon and two others back in 2004, data management firm Data Lateral, digital marketers Shift Click and multi-channel service firm Dialogue Solutions.

Howitt won £3m of new business wins last year, Dixon said, on behalf of a range of clients.

"Howitt still contributes the bulk of our pre-tax profits as the other elements of Lateral Group are newer and required a lot of infrastructure investment to complete our integrated communications management proposition," Dixon said.

This included development of Dialogue Solutions' software products MarketPower and Infrastream. "The whole multi-channel marketing and channel-optimisation proposition is now coming through and in 2009 you'll see a significant increase in those businesses' pre-tax profits," Dixon said. "2007 and the first half of 2008 was about putting those foundations in place."

For Domino's, Lateral Group provides data management, analysis, strategy as well as elements of their print and email.

"We're finding that more clients are focusing on value for money and because we're able to look at the range of clients' communications channels, we can give that value by optimising those channels."