An advertising group used by bet365, Beaverbrooks and Magners has raised salaries and paid out bonuses to help its employees with the cost-of-living crisis after its sales hit £100m.
The Freethinking Group, which is headquartered in Manchester, has posted a turnover of £100.6m for the 12 months to March 31, 2022, up from the £84.7m it achieved in the prior year.
The group includes Republic of Media, Rommatic, POPP and Intelligence22 and also reported a pre-tax profit of £2.5m, up from £2.2m.
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A statement signed off by the board said: "Turnover increased by over 18.9% on the prior year, primarily due to an increase in Republic of Media Limited's key client activity, but also due to the strong growth across other group companies.
"Group revenues also increased by over 25.3%, delivered as a consequence [of] a disproportionate increase in fee income, and consequently, improving overall margin during what was predicted to be an unpredictable trading period.
"This, despite a more ambitious approach to expansion, and a return in several (cost) areas of our business, resulted in a year-on-year growth on pre-tax profits of 14%.
"The balance sheet reflects the group's strong financial position at the year end, positive cash flow having been improved with a return to prompt cash collection resulted in debtor days of 19."
The group added: "Previously, the board had identified that we had a significant percentage of total income being generated from one client, and this reliance carried a degree of risk.
"The aim of the directors is to gradually reduce this by continuing to augment the core offering through product diversification, whilst retaining and growing the existing client base.
"This strategy has continued with the proportion of revenue from that client down significantly to a historic low.
"The Covid-19 pandemic had some impact in the financial year to March 2022 with several clients deferring spends out of the year.
"The company believes the outlook for the business is positive as we continue to emerge from the uncertainty created by the Covid pandemic."
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