Chairman’s Statement

It is a pleasure and a privilege to be joining Chime at such an exciting point in its development. As Chris Satterthwaite explains in his Chief Executive’s Statement, this has been a defining year of significant change, and one that positions the Group extremely well for growth in the future.

I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to the outgoing Chairman Lord Bell for the leadership that has helped to guide Chime to this point. I have been immensely impressed by the strength of Chime’s executive team, their sense of common purpose and the backing that they receive from shareholders. I give Tim great credit for building such a strong on-going operation and wish him all the best in his future endeavours. As a result of Tim’s departure, we will be reshaping the Chime board, with new appointments during 2013.

Performance in 2012

The Group’s on-going operations delivered a very strong performance during 2012. The operational highlights being:

Strong growth in Sport & Entertainment, Healthcare and Insight & Engagement
Successful completion of Olympic and Paralympic contracts
Sport & Entertainment operating profit increased by 105%
Substantial investment in new digital products in VCCP, CIE and Good Relations.
Healthcare now established as the fifth division of Chime, operating profit increased to £2.3 million from £0.2 million
Strong organic growth in Insight & Engagement division, operating profit up to £2.2 million from £0.7 million

New offices opened in Madrid, Moscow, Singapore, Sochi and Sydney
Acquisitions of iLUKA, McKenzie Clark, Harvey Walsh (51%), Succinct, Rough Hill (60%) and
pH Associates
Disposal of most of the Bell Pottinger business completed for £19.6 million
Lord Coe appointed as Executive Chairman of CSM Sport & Entertainment

The breadth of the Chime client list points to the considerable strength of the business - and as
Chris and the divisional heads report in the Chief Executive’s Statement, our on-going businesses have continued to add to this breadth with new clients and new propositions in rapidly growing sectors.

Opportunity in sports marketing
and entertainment

We will follow up on our deep involvement in the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games to take a lead role in forthcoming major sports events worldwide, and help brands to leverage the uniquely global communications platform that sport increasingly represents. London 2012 demonstrated the importance of such major showpiece events in bringing disparate communities together and forging deep engagement with different audiences; it also proved the expertise of the UK when it comes to executing such events.

For the UK’s leading sports marketing and communications group, a great opportunity lies in applying this expertise on an international scale. I am delighted by the recent arrival of Lord Sebastian Coe as Executive Chairman of CSM Sport & Entertainment and can think of nobody better to lead our efforts to exploit this opportunity.

Driving further integration

There are things that we can do better - and we will continue to evolve the Group during 2013 in order to do so. A key focus for me lies in continuing to drive greater integration across our different disciplines and divisions. Today’s communications challenges increasingly call for the application of a range of skills and a discipline-neutral approach to achieving solutions.

We have met these challenges successfully by embedding a more integrated way of working within Chime brands such as the VCCP Partnership, Teamspirit, Open Health and the Good Relations Group. I believe that we can create yet more opportunity across our sectors by cross-fertilising ideas and solutions across these divisions.

Prospects for the business

Despite the continuing challenges of the global economic environment, the coming years hold great opportunity for Chime. We will continue to evolve our businesses to take full advantage of this opportunity. I commend this report and accounts to the shareholders as evidence of the progress that we are making on this journey.