NOVEMBER 13, 2003

Octagon continues to drag down Interpublic

Octagon Motorsport, now called Brand Hatch Circuits Ltd, has made another big dent in the financial results of the Interpublic Group, the world's second biggest advertising agency. Interpublic's latest figures reveal that the company wrote down the value of Octagon by $221m in its third quarter results. This contributed to Interpublic's loss of $327.1m.

The numbers were also hit by restructuring costs of $57.1m, legal costs of $127.6m and $24.8m in debt repayments. The company would have been in even worse trouble were it not for the sale of NFO WorldGroup subsidiary for $89.1m. The figures suggest that Interpublic is lumping together all its problems in one quarter.

In the next few weeks the company is due to announce the sale of Brands Hatch Circuits, which made a loss this year of just $19m compared to last year's $162.9m.