Speaking at its annual general meeting today, chairman Francis Maude said its Citigate financial and corporate PR business was trading ahead of last year and its marketing services businesses -- Dynamo, Finex and The RED Consultancy -- were continuing to trade in line with expectations.
According to Maude: "The recent improvement in market conditions gives us cautious confidence. While global mergers and acquisition activity, particularly for large and mid-sized corporates, remains at low levels, the return of some IPO activity is encouraging. Levels of marketing spend are also starting to show signs of modest improvement," he said.
He added: "We believe that there is no reason to revisit the assumptions on which our budgets for the current financial year were prepared -- namely that the levels of corporate activity and marketing spend would show some progressive increase as the year progressed, implying a second half weighting in gross income and profitability."
Incepta said its two events businesses, Park Avenue in the UK and Citigate Broad Street in the US, have seen a number of major projects slip into the second half and its specialist advertising businesses has continued to experience further improvement on its positive performance in the second half of last year.
"While we remain cautious given the economic backdrop and the lack of revenue visibility, we believe that a return to modest growth could be under way," Maude said.
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