Record profits in year of change for fresh Group

CONTRACT wins with major retailers helped events company fresh Group enjoy its best-ever year as profits rose 18% to £1.3m and revenues by nearly 15% to £15.6m.

The Cheadle-based firm, which was acquired by its management team last June in a deal backed by NVM Private Equity, said it had grown staff numbers 10% to 93 in the year to September 2014.

Fresh counts retailers such as Dixons, DFS and Homebase among its clients and is also delivering an “experiential contract”  for the Carlson Rezidor hotel group.
 
Part of its strategy is to enter new markets and has recently won its first pharmaceutical brief.

Managing director Patrick Howells said: “As a team the business is delivering on its vision to bring our uniquely joined-up creative offering to clients in new industry sectors.

“2014 was a solid year of continued growth for fresh and 2015 is already shaping up to be a year of transition as we’ve just secured our first global pharmaceutical client and look to diversify into other sectors and project areas.”

Finance director Antony Wilson, another member of the MBO team added: “Over the past four years the average increase in sales is around 28% year-on-year achieved by growing and developing existing clients together with huge success in new client wins. This puts us in a very strong position for similar growth levels going forward.”