First Artist succeed in its cost-cutting measures

First Artist, the sports management group expects to produce improved results for the first half of its financial year ending 30 April 2005. Although the balance of the business is heavily weighted towards the second half of the year, the board expects the reductions in overheads and efficiency measures which will lead to improved performance on the period before even though it contains only one month of transfer market activity. The board announced that its strategy is to diversify in order to reduce First Artist’s dependence on the football market and that it has identified and evaluated a number of potential acquisition opportunism. The board also announced that it is in the process of relocating its Asia-Pacific operations from Singapore to Qatar in order to exploit the opportunities in the Middle East.