Saatchi 'must win business': My job won't last unless income rises, says chief executive

CHARLES SCOTT, chief executive of Saatchi and Saatchi, put his job on the line yesterday as the company announced 1993 results in line with City expectations.

Mr Scott said that after extensive cost-cutting, the only way forward for the advertising group was to win more business. 'My career in this company is not going to last unless revenues start to go up,' he added.

Saatchi reported its first profit since 1988 - pounds 19.2m before tax against losses of pounds 595.1m last year, after a pounds 600m goodwill write-off.

But revenues were flat after stripping out the benefit of exchange rate movements. Mr Scott said that revenues were forecast to be lower this year following disposals and the loss of two big clients in the US - Chrysler and Helene Curtis, the toiletries company. But the losses reflected conflicts of interest and strategic decisions by the companies rather than a loss of confidence in Saatchi's creative work.

In an implicit criticism of the group's old management, he said there were quality chief executives running all the US businesses for the first time since he joined the company in 1988.

Mr Scott did little to paper over reports of a continuing rift between him and the group's chairman, Maurice Saatchi. He described newspaper reports that Mr Saatchi was considering a managment buyout of the London agency as pure speculation, adding that the business was not for sale.

He confirmed that Sir Peter Walters, the former chairman of BP who was appointed to the Saatchi board as a non-executive at the beginning of the year, was undertaking a review of salaries and incentives across the group. He added that it was his view that no one should have a five-year contract as Mr Saatchi did.

Despite an improvement in the balance sheet - net debt fell 42 per cent to pounds 112m - Mr Scott cast doubts over the group's return to the dividend list this year, mooted at the time of last year's rights issue. The shares closed 1p lower at 141p.

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