Marketing services counter Delling beat forecasts with maiden finals to December – pre-tax losses were £2.77m, against the £3.5m deficit forecast by shop broker Seymour Pierce, on higher-than-expected turnover of £2.17m. Delling, which floated at 14p last October, is UK registered but Nordic-focused. Management duo Aksel Bradvelt and Geir Lolleng claim the group’s IT technology gives it the edge in the growing market for outsourcing marketing material production. Its client base includes Nokia, Statoil and McDonalds Norway. ‘We create cost advantages for marketing departments,’ says Bradvelt, ‘and our model functions even in a low-spend market. For instance, the Swedish advertising market is growing from a historic low point.’ They argue marketing departments are under pressure to drag more from their marketing spend, and there are also rising trends towards mobile marketing and screen advertising. In the early months of the current year, Delling has clinched contracts worth £4.5m in total with the likes of Hewlett Packard and retail chain Beijer. The AIM listing is helping Delling bag bigger deals and will ably assist with acquisitions, which are key in a highly fragmented space. Indeed, two acquisitions have been announced already this year, with combined annual turnover of £1m and pre-tax profits of £100,000. Strong growth looks on the cards and Seymour Pierce suggests a swing to pre-tax profits of £1.45m on a turnover of £10.5m this year. Forecast earnings of 2p give an undemanding forward multiple of ten times. Speculative buy.