In 2013 Japan's Dentsu, huge in Japan but mostly becalmed outside it, agreed to pay £3.2bn to buy media buyer Aegis, owner of the Carat, Vizeum and Isobar networks. 30 months on the deal looks like one of the winners of the century. Dentsu has just announced its Q1 numbers showing big increases in operating profits, organic growth and margins. Dentsu Aegis Network, the media buying bit, is the standout, showing organic profit growth of over 11 per cent for the half year (down a little in Q2) while Dentsu, the advertising part, showed Q1 organic growth of just 1.9 per cent (the reporting periods are different in Japan). Dentsu is about as big as it's possible to be in Japan so its growth (or not) replicates the Japanese economy as a whole. So the real growth is coming from Aegis, outside Japan. International revenues at Dentsu Aegis are now 54 per cent, up from 48 per cent last year.