Carat, Europe's largest media buying shop, has opened a small New York office to test the waters in North America.

Stig Karlsen, the Danish head of Carat Scandinavia and a vice-president of the Carat Group based in London, is heading Carat's look into the North American market.

Karlsen says for the time being there's little to report, Carat's New York presence being not much more than an office, secretary, phone and answering machine.

However, he expresses an interest in Canada and is heading to Toronto in a couple of months.

Carat is a publicly-owned company and traded on the London Stock Exchange. Karlsen says it operates in 26 countries, in Britain, Russia and elsewhere.