Battle-scarred sports player and wealth management group First Artist Corporation is back in the black and eyeing acquisitions.

First Artist, steered by entrepreneurial chief executive and key shareholder Jon Smith, has been fighting its way back from the brink in late 2003, when annual losses reached £14.6 million after £11.8 million of asset write-downs. Deteriorating finances in the football industry, exacerbated by changes in the European rules on players' contracts, helped explode a bubble of dotcom dimensions and First Artist, whose shares reached 71p on OFEX before being floated on AIM four years ago at 50p, fell all the way to 2.37p by December 2003.

Since then, the company has been working to restore its health. Football, where First Artist handles 300 players around the world, accounts for a third of revenues and, says Smith, has lately been showing 'the best trading for five years’. Recent acquisitions have included the £3 million shares and cash purchase of ABG Financial Management, tax and finance adviser to sports and media people, and an events management business – each capable of generating £500,000-a-year profits, according to Smith.

First Artist, which lost £493,000 in the year to October 2004 on £3.8 million turnover and reported a reduced interim deficit of £312,000, should show itself now 'healthily back in the black' in January when it reveals results for the year to last month, surmises Smith. The company has 'seven figures-worth of cash’, enough to fund earn-out deals, though it might come back to the market to pay for some of the acquisitions it has in mind.

Overseas expansion is on the cards, suggests Smith. At present, football, wealth management and events management represent 30 per cent each of turnover, with the remainder coming from entertainment, a division Smith says 'is to be expanded dramatically in the next 12 months’.

First Artist recently raised £400,000 at 5.25p to repay the same amount of convertible loan stock. At 6.13p, valuing the company at £5 million, the shares might repay a bold recovery punt.