Aegis sees year ahead as a good advert

The group, made up of marketing division Aegis Media and market research business Synovate, said it had also maintained the momentum into 2011 and secured a number of new contract wins, including Disney and Home Depot in North America.

The strong performance, which followed a rebound in advertising markets in the second half of the year, enabled the group to increase its key group organic revenue by 5.8 per cent, ahead of the 5.1 per cent forecast.

Aegis said it expected its organic growth for 2011 to be at least in line with that level, as it benefited from acquisitions made in faster growing markets and continuing overall market share gains.

UBS analyst Alastair Reid said the market had expected strong results following the recent comments from rivals but said he still expected forecasts for 2011 organic growth to rise.

“Overall, we believe these results should be strong enough to drive some positive reaction,” he said.

Aegis posted underlying operating profit up 12.9 per cent to £192m, which was also ahead of forecasts, and increased its dividend by 10 per cent.

The strong trading followed similar improvements at other global ad groups such as WPP, Omnicom and Publicis which all reported strong ends to the year due to growth in the US and markets such as India and China.