Creston Blames UK Health Arm for Flat Third Quarter

Marcoms group Creston has issued an interim statement for the third quarter, reporting group revenue up just 1% year-on-year, resulting it says from a combination of client budget cuts and project delays within its UK health business.

Last year, Creston launched a new brand, Creston Unlimited, which has added the suffix to the names of all its group companies including insight agencies ICM and Marketing Sciences and means the group no longer operates on a divisional basis. Following the rebrand, Creston reported a 5% increase in half year revenue to £37.3m for the six months to the end of September 2014.

In the third quarter (from October to December 2014) the group's Communications & Insight division continued to 'perform well', but the Board says the third quarter dip will bring full year group revenue growth down below its previous projections. To counter this, operating costs have now been reduced and, based on current trading, the Board expects group Headline PBT for the full year to be broadly in line with market expectations.

In its statement, the firm says that 'digital work by its nature can lead to variability in annual income over the course of a client relationship', and as a result, 'The Board continues to pursue its strategy of broadening the group's offer from pure marketing execution services to include consultancy led marketing advice.' It concludes: 'This should lead to greater pipeline visibility and more long term retained instructions.'

Web site: www.creston.com .