Creston's £3m placing to help fund Newvista expansion

Creston, owner of research agencies ICM and MSL, is selling more than 5.5 million new shares to institutional investors at 60p per share, which will raise £3.3m before costs.

In a statement CEO Don Elgie said the extra funding would help the group “bring forward its organic growth plans, particularly in the areas of mobile, digital and healthcare marketing”.

Speaking to Research he added: “We have very, very clear views with regard to growing our online [research] product internationally, and certainly some of the additional financing we have raised will go towards that.”

Newvista delivered growth of 16% last year, while sales for the insight division were down 8% overall to £28.2m.