The Mission Group Regulatory News (TMG)

16 Feb 2009 07:00



The Mission Marketing Group plc 

Mission pre close update

16 February 2009

The Mission Marketing Group plc ('themission®`, AIM: TMMG), the national marketing communications and advertising group, today issued the following pre-close update for the year ended 31 December 2008, prior to entering its close period ahead of the preliminary results announcement on Thursday 16 April 2009.

Revenue for the enlarged Group is up approximately 29%, despite the extremely challenging economic conditions in the second half of the year. On a like for like basis revenue is slightly ahead of last year with online, in particular, continuing to deliver good growth. In the current trading environment, cost management and a focus on cash generation remain priorities. Consistent with the comments made at the time of the interim results, following a strong start to 2008, restructuring costs were incurred during the second half as a result of the change in market conditions. These costs, combined with the impact of the deteriorating trading environment will result in profit before tax for the year of around £7.4m. 

The Group's new business performance remains robust reflecting the strengths of the award-winning agencies in themission's enlarged and integrated network. Recent major wins include Office of National Statistics/Census, Royal Mint, Co-Op, Fairview, Scottish SPCA and RNLI, offsetting the loss of part of the budget from one of the Group's major clients in the automotive sector.

Overall, trading for the current year has started well despite the challenging market. However, given the current uncertainty voiced by Government, central banks and industry commentators on the prospects for the UK economy, the Board is adopting a conservative outlook for the year. This includes taking proactive steps to reschedule certain liabilities to strengthen the balance sheet for 2009 and beyond. 

Iain Ferguson, Chief Executive Officer, commented:

"The environment is certainly unforgiving but I am pleased that despite this backdrop our trading volumes have held up very well. We have acted during the year to re-tune our cost base, which created some additional short term costs, and we are now well positioned for 2009".

www.themission.co.uk 

themission® is a national marketing communications and advertising group with 13 offices across the UK. The Group specialises in providing national and international clients with award winning marketing, advertising and business communications. Group members include April-Six, Bray Leino, Big Communications, Fuse Digital, thinkBDW, Story UK and RLA. themission® employs over 600 staff nationally and is listed on AIM (TMMG).