Group Press Releases
Extract from the Chairman’s AGM Statement
28 May 2003
The following extract is from Lord Sharman’s statement to Aegis Group Plc (the Group) shareholders at today’s Annual General Meeting.
“Overall trading for the Group is in line with the board’s expectations. The first four months of trading saw a continuation of the patchy but gradual recovery that we experienced in the latter part of 2002.
In North America, we continued to see a recovery in the advertising market. In particular, the stronger upfront television market and the end of the Iraq war has seen a firming of client spending plans. Our market research business also showed modest improvement as marketers increased their levels of discretionary spend.
Advertising and research spending activity in Europe, which showed weak signs of recovery in some markets in late 2002 and the early part of 2003, remains variable with improvements in some markets offset by weakness in others.
Asia Pacific remains buoyant, with strong advances in both media and market research revenues in the first four months . However, SARS is now having an effect on Synovate’s sales in the second quarter. The impact of SARS on media spend in Asia-Pacific is somewhat less but it has resulted in the postponement of some pitch activity.
Turning now to the composition of the board I can report that as of the end of this meeting Lord Hannay is stepping down as a director in the first stage of a systematic rotation of the non-executive board members. The board wishes to thank Lord Hannay for his contribution to the group over the last three years.
We are announcing today that, with effect 2nd June 2003, two new non-executive directors are being appointed – Leslie Van de Walle and Daniel Farrar. Leslie is aged 47 and, as of 1st June 2003, will be President, Shell Europe Oil Products. Daniel is aged 43 and is President & CEO, GE Capital Fleet Services Europe. Both Leslie and Daniel bring considerable international experience to Aegis and we look forward to their contributions”.
