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Photon Revenues Down Again
Australian research and marcoms group Photon - which owns agencies The Leading Edge and Jigsaw Strategic Research - has reported a 6% decline in revenue to $AUD 289.4m for the 10 months to April 2011, compared with last year's 4% drop.
 In early 2010, the group announced that it was struggling to pay the $AUD 176m worth of earn-out payments due to the owners of several agencies it had acquired. However, by September, the company had completed a recapitalisation through the issue of $103m worth of new shares, as it embarked on a strategy to simplify its management and company structure.
For the 10 months to April 2011, normalised EBITDA was $AUD 46m - down 18% after a 12% decline in 2010. Photon says this has largely been driven by lower spending from a small number of clients. Its international division saw 8% and 21% year-on-year declines in net revenue and EBITDA respectively.
'The main contributor of this variance was the lower results of (media strategy agency) Naked and The Leading Edge in 1H2011 versus the prior period,' the company said in a statement. 'However, the performance of both these agencies has improved since earlier in the financial year and for the first four months in 2H2011, the EBITDA for the two agencies has been ahead of the same period last year.'
CEO Jeremy Phillips (pictured) added that both the Leading Edge and Naked were 'heading in the right direction' and that there was momentum in both companies.
Yesterday, The Leading Edge announced the creation of three new senior roles as part of the expansion of its global network.
Web sites: www.photongroup.com , www.theleadingedge.com and www.jigsawresearch.com.au .
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