The Mission Marketing Group plc (the missiontm) today announces its results for the year ended 31 December 2013.  Highlights are: a reported operating income ("revenue") increase of 9% to £51.6m (2012: £47.5m); headline profit before tax up 3% to £5.0m (2012: £4.9m), and an interim dividend of 0.25p paid (2012: nil) and final dividend of 0.75p (2012:nil) proposed.

Group chairman David Morgan comments that 2013 was a "transitional year" for the Group: "At the outset of the year I had hoped that 2013 would have been a bumper year for the missiontm . A lollapalooza* indeed. What transpired was a year in which we cleared up a number of issues that affected us in the first half. The second half saw us grow our business, improve our balance sheet and strengthen our resources." 

the missiontm's eleven Agencies - Addiction, April-Six, Balloon Dog, Big Communications, Bray Leino, RLA, Robson Brown, Solaris, Story, ThinkBDW and Yucca - have experienced a balanced year of new business wins and increased work from existing Clients, against on-going challenging times for the sector. 

"Despite recent positive economic news, marketing budgets remained under tight scrutiny and pitches for new business were long and drawn out," says David Morgan.  "Against this difficult backdrop the Group has shown real progress.

"Our acquisition of the specialist medical Agency Solaris in October 2013 has been and will be pivotal to us as we grow our business in this healthcare area. Equally, the opening of our April-Six office in San Francisco to support our technology Clients is already paying off, as is our on-going venture to create a Far East office to facilitate Bray Leino and Group clients from Singapore.

"It's fair to say that we have our 'own ideas' about how an Agency group should be run and whilst our Agencies are evolving independently, they share ambitions and resources in a way that allows them to punch well above their weight. It's an approach that we firmly believe in and one that we are seeing remarkable results from.

"We remain committed to a journey of building the missiontm  into a leading marketing services Group by investing in our Agencies, making risk-averse acquisitions and by leveraging Group-wide synergies, in a way that will help us consolidate our position and grow our business in the UK and beyond.

"We are quietly confident of our future."

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