Latitude forecasts growth despite ‘challenging’ economy
WARRINGTON-based digital marketing agency Latitude reduced losses last year despite “little growth” in the marketing sector.
Newly-filed accounts for the year to December show sales at the firm, which conducts online marketing and search engine optimisation, were static at £17.3m although it halved pre-exceptional pre-tax losses to £721,000.
After stripping out restructuring costs the business saw a further improvement in pre-tax losses to £566,000, from £744,000.
Managing director Richard Gregory told TheBusinessDesk.com the firm was in profit in the final quarter of 2011 and has since seen 30% sales growth.
“We’ve held our nerve, and the acquisition by Callcredit allows us to keep the same headcount and focus on some of the technology we’ve been developing,” he said.
This has involved developing white label search services aimed at small and medium-sized businesses for the larger groups such as BT.
“It’s a story of continued investment. Even though we had loss-making numbers in 2010-11 we ploughed money into growth areas and we backed the right processes,” said Gregory who has moved from the chief operating officer role, replacing Alex Hoye who is leaving to focus on his ski-making business, Faction Skis.
In their report the directors said: “Latitude Digital Marketing has had a challenging year as the marketing sector has still shown little growth throughout the economy. However, the company has managed to increase the gross profit figure by over 250% in comparison to 2010.”
They added: “The company now has in place the staff and structures to enable it to keep increasing the gross profit figures. There have been over £1m of resturcturing costs in the past two years and the forecasts for 2012 are promising, growing on the company’s current cost base.
“Latitude’s reputation for quality and depth in its range of services has also continued to grow year-on-year, and the company remains innovative in the market place.”
They said the firm’s primary objective for 2012 was to continue to increase market share and improve margins. It employed 96 people during the period, up from 89.
Latitude was founded in 2001 by Dylan Thwaites and grew rapidly in the early part of the last decade. Thwaites sold the bulk of his stake via a £55m management buy-out backed by Vitruvian Partners in December 2007 and left the business a year later.
It later went through a pre-packaged administration deal and in February 2011 it was acquired by Leeds-based Callcredit, also owned by Vitruvian.
