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Be Heard reshuffles board after revealing weaker than expected profits
Digital marketing group Be Heard Group announced on Thursday that full-year profitability was likely to come in below market expectations, despite securing several new business wins and an increased annualised revenue.
Be Heard has appointed non-executive director David Morrison to the role of non-executive chairman, with founder Peter Scott moving from executive chairman to group chief executive, while Robin Price will remain both chief financial officer and chief operating officer but with the intention of splitting the roles with a new appointment in the coming months.
The AIM-listed group highlighted "a number of unexpected factors", such as reduced activity from its MMT, agenda21 and Freemavens units towards the end of the year, as well as multiple deferrals of existing and new contracts to 2018, as the reason for operations being unable to adjust costs.
MMT suffered cost overruns on one substantial contract and although this was said to have been addressed, it could potentially still result in a write-off of certain non-recoverable costs for the group in 2017.
Across the group, revenue was said to have "remained strong", with the second half of the year expected to "significantly" outperform the first as organic revenue growth jumping 24% on the previous year thanks to the 46 new clients won in 2017.
Morrison said, "Whilst we expect profitability in 2017 to be below expectations, Be Heard's new business momentum is proof of the demand for fast-moving, agile digital specialists operating seamlessly to deliver a better service to clients in today's increasingly complex marketplace. We see this trend gathering pace and remain confident of further progress in 2018."
As of 1040 GMT, shares had retreated 21.70% to 2.21p.