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Latitude reports sparkling figures and seeks acquisitions |
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Thursday, 07 May 2009 |
Warrington- based Latitude was the subject of a £58m private equity acquisition in December 2007 backed by venture capitalists Vitruvian Partners. The agency has been hitting the headlines on How-Do over the past three months as the new management team, led by chief executive Alex Hoye, has overhauled the company and in particular its management team.
Latitude’s founder Dylan Thwaites stepped down in March. Several other senior execs have also left in recent weeks.
Hoye joined Latitude last August. He was previously the CEO of online auctioneer GoIndustry plc which he built from “a napkin idea” to a £100m turnover business and is now listed on the AIM market. He in turn stepped down from Go in 2066 to bring on new management. Hoye has an MBA from Harvard and in his earlier days he consulted for McKinsey and worked for Disney.
Despite persistent market rumours that all has not been well at Latitude for some time with a number of major clients as well as staff going out the exit door, Hoye was keen to tell How-Do that the restructuring had gone better than they’d hoped and that sales for the current quarter were extremely strong following a quieter first quarter. He added that in addition to recently won Virgin Games, the agency had also picked up several other new clients including Clear Start, Canoodle Group, Terry’s Fabrics and Moveme.com. The agency is also seeking to build on this growth by launching a suite of conversion analytics offerings, believing that the analytics industry will be worth £1 billion globally by 2010. Latitude’s Liverpudlian search veteran Rob Jackson has been appointed to lead the team.
 Hoye
“The team we have in place blends the best of the previous management with new executives who have experience of managing the growth of dynamic companies as they become more institutionalised. This is extremely rare in our sector.
“We have also learnt from the accounts we have lost and have restructured in key areas of our business – in particular our client services operation which has markedly improved. In fact, I’m optimistic that some of the clients who have left us in recent months will be returning to us.”
Staff numbers at Latitude are down from their 2007 peak to a present 95 - 68 of whom are based in Warrington and 27 in London. Warrington houses the finance, HR and central management functions together with the bulk of the agency’s technical delivery. London houses the agency’s marketing and the majority of the sales operations. Something to add? Then leave a comment below or email us now.
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