Media Square revenues fall by nearly a quarter

The group, which owns design consultancies Lloyd Northover and Holmes & Marchant, also reported a headline operating loss of £900 000, although it made a headline operating profit of £400 000 in the second half of the year.

Media Square says the design segment of the business was particularly hard hit, with an overall decline in revenue of 35 per cent. The group says much of this is due to the completion of Arken’s CBS London Underground contract, which had produced high revenues for 2008 and 2009.

Media Square group chief executive Peter Reid says the results covered ‘a year of two halves’, adding that Media Square has seen ‘a strong start to the new year’.

He adds, ‘We have the right mix of consultancies and platforms to build on as the marketing budget recovers.’

Media Square sold the Marlow outpost of Lloyd Northover to the existing management team in March, having last year split Lloyd Northover’s operations across two sites.

Holmes & Marchant last year opened an office in Singapore, joining Lloyd Northover, which has had an outpost there since the beginning of 2009.

Roger Parry, chairman of Media Square, says, ‘The structural turnaround of Media Square has been completed. The company is now smaller, simpler and stable.

‘The results reflect the challenges of restructuring an already weak business against the backdrop of the credit crunch. Although it is early days, the months of March and April have produced extremely encouraging trading results.