Sport Helps Chime Register £12.7m Profits
Agency network Chime Communications has reported a 23% surge in pre-tax profits to £12.7m in the first half of 2011, with its sports marketing division accounting for 24% of total revenues.
Chime Sports Marketing, which recently acquired a controlling stake in the Brazilian firm Golden Goal in preparation for the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Rio Olympics and the experiential agency Icon to run alongside existing operations including Fast Track and Essentially Group, reported a 2% increase in operating profit to £4.3m and a 7% increase in net revenues to £19.2m.
The division won business during the period from the likes of Oscar Pistorius, the South African sprinter known as ‘Blade Runner’, Sunderland FC and the Barclays Scottish Open golf tournament.
Chime’s PR operation, which includes Bell Pottinger, Harvard and Good Relations, reported a 5% fall in net revenue to £32.6m and flat operating profits of £7.8m.
The company said that the PR operation, the largest of Chime’s divisions accounting for 48% of total revenues, had faced ‘short term challenges’ from the uprisings across the Middle East.
Commented Lord Bell, owner of Chime: ‘Our advertising business is gaining market share and our sports marketing business is well placed to become the global leader at a time when sports revenues are increasing. These are impressive results achieved in an uncertain global economic and political environment which impacted some parts of our group.’
