Next Fifteen interim profits lifted by acquisitions

Profits at Next Fifteen grew by a third in the first half of the year and the public relations group said current trading left it confident of hitting full year results despite increased internal investment.

On revenues up 18.4% to £61.8m, earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation rose 32.8% to £8.3m and profit before tax climbed 33.3% to £7.2m.

The group, whose 16 businesses include a handful of technology and consumer PR agencies, digital agencies, content marketing agencies, market research units, a programmatic advertising business, a policy communications firm and an investor relations consultancy, said organic revenue growth represented 4.1%, or 10.3% in the US, with the rest from acquisitions.

During the period, £2.4m was invested on UK acquisitions and £3.8m to complete an early buyout of interests in former acquisitions.

The investment has involved merging the recently acquired market research agency, Morar, with Redshift as part of efforts to beef up this arm, while account-based marketing platform Agent3 is increasing product development/sales to boost growth.

Chairman Richard Eyre said the UK acquisitions had already helped double profitability there, while profits in Asia Pacific had benefited from simplification strategy.

"Looking forward the group is well placed to meet its expectations and as such the board has increased the interim dividend by 20% to 1.2p per share.

Broker Canaccord said the stock was attractive for its "strong US tech/PR positioning in a more digital, social media-oriented world and importantly, continuing management initiatives to drive up non-US revenue and profit".

Shares in Next 15 were up 1.8% to 202p just after midday on Tuesday.