Sport stalls at Chime Comms

As a result, both like-for-like underlying operating income and profit fell 29 per cent to £24.4m and £4.5m, respectively. And despite securing eight contracts for the FIFA World Cup in 2014, five for the Winter Olympics and one for the Commonwealth Games, the benefits are expected to be more phased towards 2014, which means the second half will remain challenging. As a result, Numis Securities downgraded its current year pre-tax profit estimate from £28m to £25.5m, giving EPS of 20.3p, but upgraded 2014 estimates by 6 per cent to £33.5m and 26.8p (from £25.3m and 21.2p in 2012)

However, trading was robust across the rest of the business, with the other four units posting double-digit underlying revenue and profit growth. Strip out exceptional charges, and that meant that group adjusted operating income rose 6 per cent to £77.8m, leaving underlying pre-tax profit ahead 3 per cent at £11.2m.

Net debt, however, ballooned to £14.9m, compared with £21.8m of cash last year, largely due to acquisitions, including Shanghai-based People Marketing and Seb Coe's Complete Leisure business. It has also been reported that Chime has won the £100m Asda account through its advertising agency VCCP.