London-based public relations and web marketing agency Beattie Communications Group saw its turnover rise 6.5 per cent to £7.4 million in 2014, according to figures to be filed with Companies House this week.
The company recorded pre-tax profits of £123,000 for last year, down from £545,000 in 2013, following an investment of £500,000 in its brands and websites. Reserves rose slightly from £1.7m in 2013 to £1.8 in 2014.
The group operates three brands - Beattie Communications, its public relations, social and digital consultancy, 11ten, its student recruitment business and Only, a series of specialist marketing boutiques.
"We are extremely pleased with the performance of all three brands," said group managing director Laurna Woods.
"The turnover of Beattie Communications increased by 6.5% and profits would have been considerably higher but for £110,000 of bad debts. Nonetheless, we were able to make a record investment of £500,000 in our brands and websites.
"The performance of 11ten highlights the importance of investing in our brands. Launched only five years ago, the company's turnover rose 48% in 2014 to nearly £3.2m while profits grew 52% to £140,000.
"I'm pleased to say 2015 is shaping up to be another strong year for all three brands with turnover increasing at Beattie and 11ten while Only Health and Only Travel are performing particularly strongly."
Earlier this year Beattie boosted its workforce as a result of growing demand for digital communications. Four new web marketing consultants were recruited to its Glasgow and Falkirk offices to work on the company's dedicated digital arm Only W3B.
Founded in 1986 by former journalist Gordon Beattie, the Beattie Communications Group now employs 100 staff at eight offices across the UK, including its London headquarters, Glasgow, Falkirk, Manchester, Leeds and a dedicated educational marketing office in Essex.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article