Mission Group profit beats expectations

Mission Group reported annual profit ahead of expectations and said it was trading well in 2022 as its agencies recovered from the Covid-19 crisis.

Headline pretax profit rose to £7.5m in the year to the end of December from £1.2m a year earlier as revenue rose to £72.5m from £61.5m. The company swung to a reported pretax profit of £6.8m from a loss of £2.1m.

Mission said its results beat the expectation of analysts and the board though it did not give figures. The company proposed a final dividend of 1.6p a share, taking the annual payout to 2.4p. There was no dividend in 2021.

Shares of Mission rose 11.9% to 61p at 11:11 BST.

Mission is an umbrella organisation for 17 creative agencies spanning public relations, events and marketing that are spread across the UK with offices in North America, Hong Kong, Germany and other international markets. Creative services were affected by the Covid-19 crisis as clients cut spending to preserve cash.

Julian Hanson-Smith, Mission's chairman, said: "We have delivered a sustained improvement in revenues and profitability, as well as reinstating the group's progressive dividend policy. The board is optimistic for 2022, notwithstanding the current macroeconomic uncertainty and the implications of increasing general costs and in particular wage inflation.

"Trading year to date is in line with our expectations, and we continue to explore opportunities to add additional capabilities in dynamic areas of our markets."