British buying and planning firm Aegis beat analyst forecasts today, reporting an 8.7% rise in first-half pretax profit to £41.3m.

The improved results sent the group's shares up 3% to 133.75 pence per share this morning.

Net new business was up 14.8% at £750,000, following wins from 20th Century Fox internationally and Johnson & Johnson in Europe, Middle East and Africa. Revenue for the group was also up 7.7% at £499m, up on industry predictions of £485m.

First half organic revenue growth came in at 9.6%, up on the expected growth of 7.7% anticipated by a Reuters poll of eight analysts.

Aegis owns Carat, Europe's biggest media buying agency and research firm Synovate.

"Today's results show that we're on the way to delivering another good year in 2007, in line with our expectations," said chief executive Robert Lerwill.

"Revenue momentum is strong, and record net new business of $1.5bn follows our best ever full-year performance in 2006."

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