Media buying and market research group Aegis said today it was confident that shareholders will again help it to block Vincent Bolloré's attempt to gain two board seats.

Announcing forecast-beating profits, the company denied Mr Bolloré's campaign had been a distraction and vowed to continue fighting his push for board seats given his role at a major competitor.

The French financier, who has a 29% stake in Aegis, has been trying since last summer to gain a foothold on the group's board as a "long-term significant corporate shareholder".

However, Aegis, which has comfortably repelled Mr Bolloré on two occasions already, argues that his chairmanship and 25% stake in rival French advertising group Havas is a clear conflict of interest.

The Aegis chief executive, Robert Lerwill, was confident today that shareholders will back him again when Aegis holds its next extraordinary general meeting on April 4 to vote on the issue.

"Without being complacent, I think an observer might conclude that it's likely that the same result will prevail," he said. "If anything, shareholders are more convinced of the arguments."

Mr Lerwill put the cost of fending off Mr Bolloré's attempts at something around £60,000 a time, adding: "It's not a lot of money, but it's money."

He was speaking after unveiling a 16% rise in 2006 pre-tax profits to £116.2m up from £100.2m a year earlier.

Aegis said that its organic revenue growth at 7.7% beat all its major rivals, which include Sir Martin Sorrell's WPP and French advertising group Publicis.

Aegis said it expected to outperform the markets again this year. For the UK, in particular, it predicted an upturn in advertising spending after a slow 2006.

Mr Lerwill said that after growth in spending dropped to 1.5% in 2006 it was set to quicken to around 4% this year. Globally, growth would be around 5.8% and broadly in line with 2006, he added.

For the year just ended, Aegis reported a strong performance in online advertising work, with one-fifth of revenues at its Aegis Media arm coming from digital business. That was against a backdrop of just 6% of worldwide advertising spending going on digital.

For the group as a whole - which also includes the smaller Synovate market research arm - revenues were £996.9m, slightly below analysts' forecasts of £1bn but well up on 2005's £870.4m.

Aegis said 2006 was a record year for net new business of £1.4bn, including contracts with clothes chain Gap in the US and General Motors throughout Europe.

"Our prospects for 2007 are promising," said Mr Lerwill. "Our business mix, our advantage in products and services, and the record new business wins of last year should enable us to outperform our markets once more in 2007."

Broker Collins Stewart said in a note to investors the result was "all in all a very pleasing ripple of high and increasing growth rates".

Aegis also announced that long-standing chief financial officer Jeremy Hicks will leave the company on April 1 to relocate to the US.

He will be replaced by Alicja Lesniak, who most recently worked at rival network Omnicom's BBDO network.

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