Account reports are strong indicators of top takeover targets.

Looking at a company's annual accounts is like peeking into someone's underwear drawer. There's the sweet illicit pleasure of rifling through the silky bits on top, but you can bet you'll find some grey nasties lurking at the bottom.

The silky bits from this year's Willott Kingston Smith survey on ad agencies' financial performance are really rather spectacular. Take salaries: top directors continue to take big pats on the back in the form of big wads in their back pockets. No prizes for guessing that Martin Sorrell lugged home a hefty 1.3 million [pounds sterling], virtually static on last year. Don't panic; as WKS points out, Sorrell holds share options and other prospective awards under long-term incentive schemes worth the best part of 120 million [pounds sterling].

Saatchi & Saatchi's Kevin Roberts is also doing pretty well on 1.3 million [pounds sterling], and Cordiant's Michael Bungey is clearly doing something right, with a 43 per cent increase in remuneration to a tad over 1 million [pounds sterling]. And who's got the biggest packet in media? Media Planning's Bob Offen who, nevertheless, saw it shrink from 981,000 [pounds sterling] to 651,000 [pounds sterling]. But that pales in comparison with the wad snared by Aegis's former chief executive Crispin Davis, who trousered 12.3 million [pounds sterling] by cashing in 9.4 million share options when he resigned last year (if he'd hung around he would have been eligible for 11.7 million new share options). The industry's average cost of an employee is 37,543 [pounds ...