Post-war pick-up for Incepta

THE Iraq war smashed first-half profits at financial public relations and marketing services group Incepta, but a pick-up that began in the second quarter of the year is continuing.

Headline pre-tax profits slumped by 59% to £1.3m on revenues down by 7% at £77m. Another 120 jobs went as part of the plan to save £3.5m a year in costs.

Chief executive Richard Nichols said that on the marketing side, where Incepta handles seven of the world's top 10 brands, 'there is a lot of talking about 2004 but actual spending at the moment is not as big as we had anticipated'.

On the financial side, more corporate deals are coming through and the Citigate division handled the Chelsea Village deal, Morrisons and the Yell flotation. New clients won by Citigate include TMobile (after it lost Orange), BAA, Barclaycard, Freeserve, Kwik-Fit and Sainsbury's Bank.