How big is The Middle Men?

Around 9 full-time equivalents (financial year 2025).

Review: The Middle Men

The Middle Men is een pr- & communicatiebureau uit Brussel, actief sinds 2018. Met ongeveer 9 VTE is dit een middelgroot bureau.

1

How this agency makes money

Revenue, margin and what an hour of work brings in. Everything on the earning side sits together here.

Revenue trendgross margin per financial year

20212022202320242025

Latest year: € 495.116 gross margin, growth +17,1% against a sector median of +1,2%.

At or above sector pace

MarginEBITDA / gross margin · value-added coverage

20212022202320242025

The Middle MenSector median

EBITDA margin 4,7%, sector median 25,6%. Value-added coverage 1,05 (median 1,29). Value-added coverage sits in the sector-wide grey zone (0.95-1.15): context, not an alarm.

Below sector level

Revenue per headGross margin per FTE, against payroll cost

€ 55.013

Median (2025) € 83.630

Against a payroll cost of € 52.399 per FTE. The ratio between the two is the coverage rate above.

Below the median

Yield levelYield per hour worked, against payroll cost

€ 32

Median (2025) € 50

15.376 hours worked, 1.708 per FTE. Against that sits € 31 of payroll cost per hour worked, leaving € 2 for premises, equipment, depreciation and profit.

Below the median

No hourly rate follows from this. Gross margin is already net of services and sundry goods, which mixes rebilled production with the agency's own overhead, and the accounts do not say how many hours were billable. Deriving a rate from this systematically understates it.

2

Can the agency take a hit

Buffer, cash position and payment behaviour side by side, so you can see where they disagree.

Bufferequity in months of payroll

Buffer: 2,2 months (median 12,2 mo). Equity in the latest year: € 88.377.

Thin buffer

Cash positionAvailable cash, and whether it covers short-term debt

Cash € 465.890. Liquidity ratio 1,09: current assets cover short-term debt in full. Solvency 10,5%.

Tightly covered

Payment behaviourTowards suppliers and towards the NBB

Trade payables correspond to 436 days of supplier credit, sector median 71. The accounts were filed 173 days after closing; the legal deadline is seven months.

Pays slower than average

3

Signals and strengths

Events from the CBE and the Official Gazette over the past 24 months, plus positive markers derived from the figures.

Continuity

No serious signals

Signals in the last 24 months

Zichtbaarheid verschoven · 1 Nov 2026 · Google Autocomplete
Zichtbaarheid verschoven · 1 Oct 2026 · Google Autocomplete
Thin buffer · 31 Dec 2025 · NBB
Equity covers less than three months of payroll. A limited reserve, and at many smaller agencies the normal state of affairs. Ask how the agency absorbs a setback.

Click a signal for a plain-language explanation. Each signal is a fact from a public source, without the agency's own context. Best to ask them directly.

What this agency does well

Gross margin grew 4 years in a row
Outgrew the sector median 4 years running
Profitable in every one of the last 5 years
Team grew (+8,4% FTE in the latest year)
Margin per hour worked rose 4 years in a row
Comfortable cash position: 361 days of payroll

Each point is a fact from the filed annual accounts, measured against the same thresholds and sector medians as the signals above.

4

All the figures

Reference material, not a starting point. Expand it if you want to read the series yourself.

5 financial years, 2021 to 2025Result, staff and balance sheet

	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025
Result
Gross margin	€ 183.477	€ 261.667+42,6%	€ 353.508+35,1%	€ 422.885+19,6%	€ 495.116+17,1%
EBITDA	€ 21.002	€ 21.168	€ 14.861	€ 21.257	€ 23.128
EBITDA margin	11,4%	8,1%	4,2%	5%	4,7%
Staff
FTE	4,6	6,0+30,4%	7,2+20%	8,3+15,3%	9,0+8,4%
Gross margin per FTE	€ 39.886	€ 43.611	€ 49.098	€ 50.950	€ 55.013
Payroll cost per FTE	€ 35.234	€ 40.017	€ 46.974	€ 48.342	€ 52.399
Balance sheet
Equity	€ 60.148	€ 71.022	€ 75.040	€ 81.992	€ 88.377
Cash	€ 173.209	€ 155.922	€ 119.140	€ 174.483	€ 465.890
Liquidity ratio	1,10	1,11	1,09	1,09	1,09

Payroll cost per FTE comes from the social report where available, otherwise from the Remuneration line. Both are gross costs including employer contributions.

What this factsheet does not know

How good the work is. Figures do not measure creativity, strategy or chemistry.
How the client portfolio is spread. Concentration is not in the accounts.
Freelancers and subcontractors are not in the FTE figures. An agency with 40 staff may in practice run with 70 people.
The figures cover financial year 2025, filed on 22/06/2026. At a fast-moving agency reality today may differ.

Based on publicly filed annual accounts (NBB) and official records (CBE, Belgian Official Gazette). An indication, not financial advice. Sector medians calculated on 2 Nov 2026. Sector medians based on financial year 2025: the last year for which nearly all accounts have been filed.

Coming soon

We're working on this part of the factsheet.

Coming soon

We're working on this part of the factsheet.

1

People 12 people mapped

Strategy weighs heavily here: 5 of 12 are strategists. Within that core, Merkstrategie, Marketingstrategie and Contentstrategie stand out.

MD

Maarten Debecker

Managing Partner

PD

Philippe De Vries

Managing Partner

ET

Emma Thijs

Communicatieadviseur

JV

Johanna Verstraelen

Junior communicatieadviseur

LM

Lydie Marotte

Communicatieadviseur

MT

Maarten Thimpont

Projectleider

MH

Manuel Herrera Crespo

Communicatieadviseur

MV

Maurien Vanderschrieck

Projectleider

MJ

Michiel Johnson

Projectleider

RH

Robbert Hendrix

Projectleider

SW

Sarah Wagner

Grafisch ontwerpster

SV

Sylvie Vandermarcke

Communicatieadviseur

Based on public profiles. Something wrong? Let us know.

2

Seniors or juniors?

Payroll cost per FTE is the best public proxy for a team's experience level. Higher is not automatically better, but it says something about who sits at the table.

Payroll cost per FTE

€ 52.399

-15% versus the median

Team composition

9,0 FTE

56% women
44% men

€ 52.399

Median PR- & communicatiebureau (2025) € 61.577All agencies (2025) € 62.294

Read with care. Directors and partners invoicing through a management company are not in the payroll cost. At small agencies this skews the picture downwards considerably.

3

Will your team stay?

Inflow and outflow from the social report. This series only counts people on the payroll: freelancers who invoice do not appear in it. A low figure therefore means two very different things, a stable permanent team or a small core with heavy outsourcing. A high figure usually points to short contracts. Compare only within the same type of agency.

Exits 2024

/

Median for this type of agency (2025): 35,1%

Inflow 2024

12,0%

20212022202320242025

Figures for financial year 2024: in 2025 this agency published no inflow or outflow.

Source: annual accounts and social reports (NBB), collected by IKAg. Financial year 2025. Calculations by IKAg; an indication, not financial advice. Sector medians based on financial year 2025: the last year for which nearly all accounts have been filed.