TOP 150 PR CONSULTANCIES 2003: Profiles

AS BISS & CO (48) - £1,667,570 - Negative income growth

Fee income at AS Biss & Co dropped by 16 per cent during 2002, down from just under £2m to £1.6m, but the public affairs specialist is now back on track and celebrating a first quarter up by 17 per cent on the same period last year.

Chairman Adele Biss puts the difficulties of 2002 down to the knock-on effects of September 11 and the subsequent fragile economy. In response, the consultancy decided to continue investing in its people, but pulled back on marketing activity.

AS Biss managed to preserve a bonus for staff last year, and carried on recruiting. Recent additions to the management team include executive Simon Bough, who was head of media and press at union Amicus.

'We used the year to sharpen up our client services and processes, and introduce quality assurance mechanisms,' says Biss. 'We are now in a much better shape than I would have thought six months ago.'

The only client lost in 2002 was Nestle, which consolidated its PR with Weber Shandwick, and there were some big client wins. These included lobbying for London bus operator Metroline, and Crossrail, the company planning two new rail routes across the capital. The agency is also working for IBM and carrying out corporate and consumer PR and PA work for Cardiff's bid to be European Capital of Culture in 2008.

Healthcare was another growth sector, with AS Biss working for the National Clinical Assessment Authority.

At the end of last year, the agency linked up with Gavin Anderson in Brussels to work jointly on European Union work.

BELL POTTINGER/GOOD RELATIONS (1) - £30,812,000 - Negative income growth

Lord Bell, chairman of Bell Pottinger's listed parent company Chime Communications, characterises 2002 as the worst year he has ever known in PR. Bell Pottinger/ Good Relations' fee income plunged 27 per cent to £31m and headcount was slashed by over 90 to 282.

'This is a people business - if you bring in good people you get good results,' says Bell. 'That's the worst part of this decline: we've had to let go people we have invested in.'

Decline was harshest in financial and corporate areas, but after a testing first half of 2002, Bell Pottinger CEO Kevin Murray says 'things have stopped getting worse'. Indeed, 2003 has begun more promisingly for the financial team with work on Wal-Mart's bid for Safeway.

Last year, new business came from clients including BAe Systems, Vauxhall, MFI and Sun Microsystems. However, nuclear energy company BNFL and property group British Land defected to Finsbury.

Towards the end of the year, previously separate agencies QBO and Bell Pottinger Public Relations were merged to create a 60-strong division called QBO-Bell Pottinger, and this group has now been brought under joint management with Good Relations. The move was presented as giving the business critical mass.

Other key changes include the arrival of former BP global vice-president of government and public affairs Graham Barr to head up a new division called Sans Frontieres, which focuses on clients' issues and projects that sit outside Bell Pottinger Communications' traditional public relations practices.

THE BRIGHT CONSULTANCY (145) - £464,000 - Income growth

The Bright Consultancy got off to a good start after gaining a foothold in the Top 150 table for the first time since the firm's launch in 2000.

Founder and managing director Ian Bates has managed to achieve growth in the agency's second year of 143 per cent, with fee income up from £191,000 to £464,000 during 2002.

The West Midlands agency includes the RAC and home heating company Baxi on its client roster, and won work for Fujifilm's digital imaging division last year. It started 2002 on a roll after winning four out of five pitches at the end of 2001, and this year looks like it might be similarly successful.

The consultancy has so far exceeded all its business plans, and Bates is confident about the prospects for 2003. He says 'the magic figure would be £1m', although he accepts that the market is tough and expecting the same level of growth this year might not be realistic.

The agency is now putting its efforts into marketing, and tightening up even further on margins and supplier costs. Building up its consumer work is one of Bright's targets for 2003, although Bates says the agency is capable of handling most areas of PR, bar IT and corporate affairs.

Bates sees The Bright Consultancy as being part of a 'renaissance in Midlands PR', with a young, dynamic team. The company is actively recruiting and now has 12 staff. All are called 'consultants', but two senior additions to the team over the past year have been Andrea Matthews, who has an agency and in-house consumer background, and Michelle Simpson, who came from Barkers in Birmingham, Bates's own alma mater.

The Bright Consultancy's client work during 2002 ranged from UK business media and travel industry relationship-building for German car rental company Sixt, based in the East Midlands, to launching a commemorative Golden Jubilee range of china for Churchill China.

CITIGATE (2) - £23,442,443 - Negative income growth

Turbulence in the financial markets leading to a steep decline in IPO and M&A activity - which usually accounts for one third of Citigate's income - has had a negative impact on the company, particularly regarding its leading UK PR business, financial agency Citigate Dewe Rogerson. Fee income has slumped 25 per cent from £31m to £23m, and staff numbers have declined from 346 to 282.

'Over the last two years, global M&A activity is about 50 per cent down in terms of the value of deals, while in terms of the number of transactions we are looking at levels last seen in 1995,' says CEO of Citigate parent Incepta Richard Nichols.

But there have been success stories in a diminished market, with CDR working on the mergers of CMG and Logica, National Grid and Lattice, Granada and Carlton, and e.on's acquisition of Powergen. It has also acted on IPOs for Mouchel and Investec, rights issues for Legal & General and Cookson, is advising Morrisons on its bid for Safeway and worked on CMI's unsuccessful attempt to take over Six Continents.

Around £4.5m in fees were contributed by Citigate's regional businesses in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Belfast and Birmingham, with a sixth office recently opened in Manchester. Rob Morrice was appointed CEO of the regional businesses at the end of 2002, and it is clear that Incepta regards this as an area with strong growth potential at a time of continuing volatility in the City of London.

COLLEGE HILL ASSOCIATES (4) - £7,947,832 - Negative income growth

Rumours about a takeover of College Hill by marketing services group Chime Communications were squashed in August 2002. The independent City PR firm withdrew from a move, says chairman Alex Sandberg, because 'Chime's share price (at that time) wouldn't sustain a transaction'.

The IR, financial and corporate agency faired reasonably well during a bad year for the financial sector. Its modest two per cent fall in fee income came at a cost to headcount, which was cut by six per cent to 82 by the end of the year. Most damaging to the firm, according to Sandberg, was the lack of M&As and flotation work in the City.

Nonetheless, there were several notable account wins, including a corporate account with pool-betting group the Tote in February, followed by IR and financial work for Punch Taverns a month later. A tourism drive for South African Tourism and a wide-ranging financial calendar and IR brief from casino operator London Clubs International helped its bottom line later in the year.

A more considered approach to international business saw the appointment of two new international directors focusing on Europe. David Sturken joined from Citigate, and Peter Pantlin came from Societe Generale, where he was an equity capital markets analyst.

Three of the agency's partners have left since last autumn, while former Lloyds director of marketing Caroline Wagstaff was hired as its 18th partner.

As part of a senior recruitment drive, Reuters corporate communications manager Adrian Duffield was appointed as a director, while former Merrill Lynch senior analyst Bob Haville became director of investor relations.

The concentration on Europe sees Sandberg searching for a potential French or German acquisition this year. He says: 'About a quarter of all the work we do is international. We're considering either a joint venture or an investment, but we're keen to establish a formalised business relationship.'

COUNTRYWIDE PORTER NOVELLI - £17,046,308 (CH, Year end 31.12.01)

'I've been in this business 20 years with CPN and I have to say 2002 was the most unpredictable and volatile year I can recall,' says CPN European CEO Neil Backwith.

Backwith says that a number of clients switched from a contractual fee-based relationship to project management during the course of the year, making resource planning more difficult and 'potentially adding cost to the client because agencies can't plan far ahead'. There was also an increase in the number of major clients using their procurement department to hammer out terms and squeeze margins.

The tech and consumer/brand practice areas 'performed well', the latter buoyed by the strength of consumer spending during 2002, while the former was underpinned by big hardware, software and systems integration clients.

The going was tougher for the healthcare and corporate teams. Tighter regulatory control on product licences reduced the amount of launch activity among pharmaceutical companies, says Backwith, while the corporate side was hit by a reduction in CSR activity by clients nervous about the economic picture. There was, however, a rise in smaller internal comms and change management work.

New business wins included Hewlett-Packard and Royal Mail, but CPN lost business for the Government-backed Energy Saving Trust. Headcount at the agency has fallen, mainly through natural wastage.

'We had a reasonable year last year, but maintaining the kind of margins we try to make has been difficult,' says Backwith.

COW (127) - £602,584 - Income growth

Organic growth of existing accounts and household name wins helped to almost double Cow's PR fees from £310,000 at the end of 2001, to £603,000 last year. The first quarter of 2003 is looking equally promising, and the agency claims income is up by around 50 per cent on the first quarter of 2002.

'Our target is £750,000 for 2003, but we are already doing better than last year, so we are quietly confident about this,' says joint owner Dirk Singer.

Cow is often cited as a consumer shop, thanks to its success in winning high-profile work for clients such as BaByliss, Comfort, Yahoo!, HarperCollins and Scalextric during 2002. However, the company started life in 2000 with two tech clients (one of which, bolero.net, is still with the agency), and co-founders Singer and Sian Morgan plan to make more of their corporate and B2B capability in the coming year. They will be helped by Kate van Beek, who was promoted to be the third director early this year.

One of the highlights of 2002 was winning six competitive pitches in a row, putting Cow's new business success rate at 75 per cent. Organic growth has come from clients such as Interbrew, which handed Cow its Castlemaine XXXX account on top of Staropramen and Hoegaarden.

During the year, Cow set up its research and sampling arm, Milk, which recruits students to carry out targeted face-to-face surveys and help with events.

Cow has a similarly creative approach to looking after its 16 staff, all of whom are shareholders in the company. There are no ranks - everyone is a consultant and there are dedicated project leaders on accounts. Staff get their birthdays off work and can dip into a 'make yourself more interesting fund' for any outside hobby or non-work related training.

EDELMAN (3) - £14,563,087 - Income growth

Last year was a memorable one for the world's largest independent PR agency. It celebrated its 50th anniversary, and the UK office performed well in a difficult market, driving fee income up 16 per cent to over £14.5m.

Growth was delivered by the corporate, PA and healthcare teams - with other practice areas remaining 'stable' - through a combination of new business wins and expanding the budgets of existing clients. Account wins during 2002 included AstraZeneca, Microsoft, Orange and Johnson & Johnson, for which Edelman launched the Acuvue 2 Colours contact lenses in the UK through sponsorship of Blue's One Love tour. Leisure company Xscape departed.

Last year also saw a significant management shake-up with the departure of CEO John Mahony and chairman Nigel Whittaker. James Thellusson, formerly European MD of Edelman's CSR and crisis communications arm, First&42nd, was promoted into the CEO role in July and oversaw a number of management changes.

Michael Burrell was lured from Westminster Strategy, where he was chairman, to head up Edelman's European PA practice and has since been joined by three other former WS colleagues, including chief operating officer Susan Eastoe. 'The intention is to be the largest and best public affairs agency in the marketplace in two years,' says Thellusson.

Mark Cooper arrived from Lexis to become creative director, while Michael Brown, an ex-Daily Mirror assistant editor, was appointed media director.

The healthcare division has been subdivided into five main practice areas - BioScience, Rx Health, Consumer Health, Strategic Health and Political Health. Denise Doran and Corinne Pluchino have joined as directors with healthcare responsibilities.

An 'affiliation' with media agency Walker Media has given Edelman greater access to TGI data and other planning tools. The agency has also invested in building its brand and profile through initiatives such as sponsorship of the CBI 'Working lunches and suppers for senior directors' series of events.

GCI/APCO - Fee income figures not available, see p18

Figures for 2002 are unavailable for the Grey-owned agencies, but it has been a tough year for GCI. No redundancies were made in 2002, but headcount shrank as staff who left were not replaced.

The FMCG marketing comms practice area held up well, but B2B vendors, professional services and financial clients were hard hit. Three clients - Home Shopping Europe, doctors.net and systems house Digiplex - went into liquidation, and ATM system Link took its PR in-house.

'An awful lot of clients have ceased to be - not just dotcoms, but firms that were riding the wave of investor confidence just vanished,' says GCI chief executive Adrian Wheeler. 'Major clients, who remain clients, are much more cautious about committing funds.'

The most significant client win was Dell, for which GCI now works across 22 European countries. GCI Europe has 20 multi-country programmes involving the UK, of which 15 are co-ordinated out of the London office. Wheeler says international work is a growth area. Other new business during 2002 included crisis preparedness work for Michelin and sports sponsorship projects for Visa and BMW.

The firm's City arm GCI Financial closed last month with the loss of director Roger Leboff and four redundancies. Other staff changes at GCI include the arrival of head of European IT practice Nicola Taylor from Oracle and Rhonda Smith's appointment as GCI Healthcare MD.

At public affairs agency APCO, Stephen Kehoe succeeded Nick DeLuca as MD. Kehoe joined APCO from the Washington DC office of Weber Shandwick last summer. DeLuca is moving into a pan-European role on his return to the business after taking a sabbatical.

APCO is building its corporate comms capabilities to broaden its offer beyond its core PA activity. Significant wins included Chapter 11 communications for WorldCom across Europe and pharmaceuticals company MSD. Existing client Microsoft upped its PA activity.

GERONIMO PUBLIC RELATIONS (43) - £1,903,577 - Income growth

Geronimo, which was the fastest growing agency in this year's Top 100, saw fee income jump 148 per cent from £766,500 to £1m - a rise that is especially good as the agency has only been trading since 2001. This year looks even better as the company claims the first quarter of 2003 has seen business rise by 30 per cent on the same period last year.

The consultancy, which only handles public sector and corporate social responsibility work, secured a place on the Department of Health's roster.

Other wins included the Government's new Connexions careers service for young people, and UK Online Centres, which aim to reduce the digital divide.

Organic growth has come from central Government rosters, including the Department of Work and Pensions and the Department for Education and Skills, as well as agencies such as the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency.

Geronimo has also set up offices in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland in the past year to help establish better media relations in the regions.

Founder Karen Harris puts some of the agency's success down to its unusual structure. She says: 'We have teams who are dedicated to a single campaign at any one time. When we set up, a lot of people in the industry said it would never work, but it has - it's like having the best of an agency and an in-house team.'

She now has 30 staff, and recruits additional people when the business needs new staff to service a new client. In some sectors this might be a risky strategy, but Geronimo has never lost a client, and the fields it operates in are largely untouched by economic insecurity.

Harris says her teams like being able to concentrate on one client, and are kept even happier with two fun days a year, on which the agency closes completely for a treat such as flying to Paris for lunch.

HATCH-GROUP (13) - £4,785,876 - Income growth

hatch-group showed modest growth of four per cent last year, but also moved several steps closer to achieving its ambition of becoming a full-service agency as it added new sector capabilities.

The year kicked off with the firm's financial PR debut - the launch of Prospero Financial in January, headed by former Smithfield Financial founding partner Michael Oke - followed a month later by hatch-group Public Affairs under former Flagship Group head of PA Simon Elliot.

'We wanted to become a full-service PR group and we were aware that the missing areas were financial, corporate and public affairs,' says hatch-group CEO Michael Murphy.

Although on the acquisitions trail in 2001, last year saw only the modest acquisition of five-strong agency Connors Communication in October, which brought with it clients such as search engine Google and digital music distribution company OD2.

New business accounted for close to £1m last year, according to Murphy.

This was reflected in wins such as its consumer work on The Irish Lottery Bet for betting shops coalition 49s, literary sponsorship for mobile phone giant Orange, EDS, Egg and The World DAB Forum.

But the year was also marked by lost accounts: Hensons, Gullame Entertainment and O2 (formerly BT Cellnet).

hatch-group's new financial business was boosted in June by the addition of Citigate Dewe Rogerson founder Nico Rogerson as non-executive vice-chairman, while lawyer John Lewis was simultaneously named as non-executive chairman.

This year is set to be another year of significant change with the news that Brian MacLaurin, founder and chairman of hatch-group's £5m 2001 acquisition, is to leave the company in June to start his own business. Divisional managing director Ian Monk is also to leave the agency to start his own firm.

HENRY'S HOUSE (84) - £1,051,750 - Income growth

Consumer and entertainment agency Henry's House makes its debut in the table this year, also breaking the £1m fee income barrier for the first time since launching five years ago.

The firm employs 19 people, with 65 per cent of its business in FMCG brands, including Absolut vodka, Schweppes and Malvern.

Thirty-five per cent of its income is derived from entertainment clients, which last year provided a fruitful stream of business. Having handled media relations for TV phenomenon Pop Idol, the firm also added winner and finalists Will Young, Gareth Gates and Sarah Whatmor to its talent list, along with S Club Junior and Annie Lennox.

Its TV work has in fact become a strength of the company, with Big Brother, Johnny Vaughan and Jamie Theakston on its books.

'We've concentrated on media relations, really,' says founder and MD Julian Henry. 'PR is going through a funny period where clients are cutting back. Clients like us because we deliver on the column inches.'

With growth of 49 per cent in fee income, the agency was hardly affected by market downturn, says Henry. It has increased staff numbers at a junior level by five and hired Chrysalis head of press Joe Milloy as talent director in June, to bring the total headcount to 19.

International links were formed last year in the form of a partnership with Hollywood's second largest talent PR firm BWR, which promotes American Pop Idol in the US. Henry says the aim is to gain access to Hollywood talent for HH: 'We want to talk directly to Hollywood.'

HILL & KNOWLTON - £26,106,000 (CH, Year end 31.12.01)

According to Hill & Knowlton chief executive Marie Louise Windeler, the third quarter of last year was extremely challenging, but the business did 'rather well' otherwise. Although WPP-owned H&K cannot release financial or overall headcount figures, it appears to remain in fairly good shape as it hired 12 newcomers to the PR industry on its graduate training programme in 2002.

There were a few unwanted account losses, notably Vauxhall and the Teacher Training Association, but these were outweighed by new business successes.

Among the accounts picked up last year were Saudi petrochemical company Sabic, Nestle confectionery brands Yorkie, Mini Rolls and Milky Bar, Pfizer brand Listerene, LEGO, UBS for its America's Cup sponsorship and American Football body NFL.

The pan-European financial PR offer was closed down due to a lack of IPO activity, but the UK financial services team won DirectLine Life and MDM Bank and performed well in a tough market. Important healthcare wins included a skin cancer treatment brief from Galderama and Spanish bio-pharmaceuticals company PharmaMar.

Healthcare PR heavy-hitter Nick May joined the healthcare practice as chairman late in 2002.

Other new business last year included an internal comms programme for Kingfisher and assignments across EMEA for Hewlett-Packard. Changes to H&K's corporate structure were implemented to make cross-selling of services to clients easier.

'We've taken the opportunity to consolidate and really focus on client service, quality and working closely together,' says Windeler.

MUNRO & FORSTER COMMUNICATIONS (28) - £3,241,702 - Income growth

Healthcare specialist Munro & Forster was a beneficiary of its expanding sector, showing growth of 20 per cent, with fee income of £3,241, 702.

This was despite what managing director Julie Flexen describes as a 'tightening healthcare PR market'.

'There is more competition in the sector,' she says. 'During the year we reacted by putting more cost controls in place.'

Healthcare PR makes up around 80 per cent of the 50-strong firm's fee income, with its consumer healthcare work comprising public health, public education, retail and over-the-counter brands.

Food brands and food-related organisations are a significant part of that, with Adams Confectionery (a win last year) and The Flour Advisory Board. The rest of its income is from advocacy and PA.

The tightness in the market is illustrated by the fact that the majority of M&F's new business during the year came in the form of project work, says Flexen, with public health and charities work most prone.

'The majority of our business areas saw growth,' she adds. 'We saw more than a 40 per cent increase in fees in public health work and again in prescription medicines.'

New clients include the British Society of Gastroentorologists, Nova Nordisk (hormone replacement therapy), a media and consumer brief from community pharmacy chain Lloyds Pharmacy and the consumer Five a Day fruit campaign for the Department of Health.

Company founder Alison Munro recently announced her retirement, which led to an MBO last month (PRWeek, 28 March). Flexen is now sole MD, while ex-co-MD Brian Gunson is chairman. Former board director Sarah Hart has been named deputy MD.

ROGER STATON ASSOCIATES (88) - £973,580 - Negative income growth

Buckinghamshire-based tech specialist Roger Staton Associates (RSA) celebrated its 25th anniversary last year. But the firm had little else to celebrate. Behind a 40 per cent drop in fee income, says agency co-founder and chairman Roger Staton, was 'the most challenging year we have had since we set up in 1977'.

The firm suffered no dramatic client departures to other agencies, with one client shifting PR budgets into direct sales and another moving its PR overseas, but most of its 16 retained and 14 project clients cut their investment in PR. Staton explains: 'We experienced a widespread trimming of budgets. A lot of our clients looked to save money, not just in PR but in advertising too.' The firm has core competencies in electrical and mechanical engineering, as well as computers and telecoms, mainly in the B2B tech sector.

RSA's most important win last year was Symantec and, in the second half of the year, it also added teleconferencing company Meetingzone and IT services company Fox IT to its client list. This year, the Invest in Sweden Agency has hired the firm to promote inward investment in the Scandanavian country and the agency also won business from French cable manufacturer Nexans.

During its challenging year, the B2B boutique also undertook a restructuring of senior roles, which Staton says had been planned for a while. He denies his move into the chairman role prefigures a retirement: 'We have been trying to move to a team-managed business structure. It came to full effect last year.' As a result, account directors Jennifer Janson and Mark James were appointed directors of the company.

Staton says the year so far has comprised of focused, small-budget campaigns, but that the firm's niche specialisations is helping. He adds: 'We're modestly hopeful that last year was as bad as it gets.'

SHINE COMMUNICATIONS (57) - £1,501,567 - Income growth

Consumer shop Shine had an unexpectedly good year, given the downturn in its sector, with a 26 per cent rise in fee income. 'We thought at the beginning that 2002 would be a rough ride, but the leads didn't stop coming in,' says managing director Michael Frohlich.

The agency grew existing business 'by 50 per cent', according to Frohlich, but new business accounted for the rest of its good fortunes.

In April, the firm emerged successful from a five-way pitch to promote off-licence giant First Quench's range of chains that includes Thresher Wine Shop and Wine Rack. In the same month, its sports division won promotion work for Puma's soccer and sportswear ranges in the run-up to the World Cup and the Commonwealth Games.

Other wins included a move from a project to retainer basis with Interbrew for Murphy's Irish Stout, the promotion of all of FilmFour's movie releases for the year, a share of the Royal Mail's £2.5m account split between five agencies, and launch PR for the Polaroid One camera, due to come onto the market this summer.

A key aim for the firm was building relationships that would lead to being added to agency rosters. Frohlich says: 'At each pitch (as a roster agency) you learn what clients want and how they want to work.' As well as being on Interbrew's and the Royal Mail's rosters, Shine this year has made it onto the Heinz roster, having won Heinz Salad Cream.

Expanding its service offering in 2002, the firm launched a new entertainment and film division, hiring Emma Chapman as its new director.

The year ended with one client loss, says Frohlich - new client First Quench elected not to renew Shine's contract after six months.

TEXT 100 INTERNATIONAL (47) - £1,761,166 - Negative income growth

Like many tech specialists, Text 100 had a tough year in 2002, with new business leads drying up and fee income down a painful 37 per cent, from £2.8m to £1.8m.

Winning the massive IBM contract in 2001 actually contributed to last year's downturn, since the agency was forced to release a number of competing clients, including Sun, and its remaining clients were under huge economic pressure.

The company also lost MD Glen Goldsmith last May, who left to set up his own agency with European marketing director Katie King. In the year since Andy West added the UK role to his position as EMEA MD, he has sought to steady the ship, concentrating on refocusing the business as a tech PR consultancy specialising in B2B work.

'It's what we do best. We have been working hard to build our reputation within the IT community as a lean and hungry UK consultancy with a global capability, not a bloated and arrogant Goliath,'says West. The company has worked on improving processes, and a European leadership council is now in place.

The message has been going down well, and 2003 has started with a handful of good wins, including the DVD+RW Alliance, whose members include Philips and Sony.

Text now has a team of 29, after losing 12 people last year through a combination of compulsory and voluntary redundancies, in addition to younger members of staff leaving because they weren't happy working in a struggling sector of the industry.

West says it's been 'a long way to come back' and doesn't expect to see much growth during this year, although he is conservatively optimistic that the company has been turned around: 'It was a tough year, but we didn't shirk from it. We now have strong leadership and we have passion and belief in the company.'

WEBER SHANDWICK - Fee income figures not available, see p18

Weber Shandwick's figures were not filed at Companies House when PRWeek went to press, but according to our 2002 Top 150 league tables, which WS topped, fee income had declined 17 per cent to £41m and headcount had fallen from 642 to 576 by the end of 2001. Much of this was the inevitable outcome of the merger of WS and BSMG Worldwide, but was exacerbated by the industry downturn.

WS is unable to release figures for 2002, but industry observers believe the fall in both revenues and staff numbers has continued, with the former now thought to lie somewhere between £30 and 40m and the latter to be between 430 and 440.

'We had a difficult journey in 2002,' concedes Weber Shandwick joint CEO Colin Byrne. 'But against a difficult economic background we have managed to maintain strength in all the key PR disciplines.'

The financial, public affairs and tech practice areas are thought to contribute about 20 per cent each to group revenues, with a further 15 per cent coming from the regional network. The consumer practice area, which had been somewhat neglected by both agencies prior to the merger, has been reinvigorated under Sally Ward, formally of CPN, with client wins during 2002 including T-mobile.

At the end of 2002 the corporate practice was restructured into three new specialist teams: strategic media relations, international affairs; issues and crisis management and corporate reputation.

The media relations team has been working with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas on their High Court battle with Hello!.

Client losses during 2002 included airline BMI and Kodak - due to a conflict of interest with Fuji.

Key: (X) Top 150 ranking

CH - Companies House.