Be Heard Group begins 2017 well, trading in line with expectations

Shares in Be Heard Group rose after it said 2017 had started well and that the company was trading in line with the board's expectations.

It said MMT in particular was growing strongly as group cross referrals started to impact, said chairman Peter Scott in an AGM statement.

"New business wins this year include Cath Kidston, BDO and Brakes at agenda21, PPG, Sense, Save the Children and Gowling WLG at MMT Digital and Clyde & Co, the Society of Petroleum Engineers and ACCA at Kameleon," said Scott.

Be Heard, he said, had also made further progress broadening existing client relationships with Vodafone, Essilor, Northumbria Water, Wiltshire Farm Foods and BDO served by two or more partners within the Group.

In February, it acquired a 75% stake in Freemavens, an analytics and insight consultancy, which provided an entry point into big data and analytics and brought a number of new clients into the group including Unilever, Barclays, Channel 4 and RNLI.

"Key product developments in 2017 include a new Artificial Intelligence-optimised media trading service at agenda21, enhancing its ability to maximise clients' Return on Investment from digital media," said Scott.

"We continue to explore a strong and growing pipeline of earnings enhancing acquisition opportunities in line with our strategy of building a high-performance pure-play digital marketing services group."

At 14:21 BST, shares in AIM-quoted Be Heard were up 1.35% to 3.75p each.