Martin Sorrell’s S4 pulls results due to auditor delay
Shares in Martin Sorrell’s S4 Capital plunged by 35% on Wednesday after auditors PwC said they were unable to complete the work needed for the digital advertising group to release its 2021 results on Thursday. S4 said in a statement to the stock exchange that it had been informed at 1330 GMT by PwC that the auditors were “unable to complete the work necessary” and that the results would be published as soon as PwC completed its work.
“The company believes that the results for 2021 remain within the range of market expectations and continued to trade strongly in the first two months of 2022,” it said.
Shares in S4, which had been trading generally flat on the day before the release of the statement at 1456 GMT, fell sharply and were down by 35% when the stock market closed at 1530.
S4 Capital was built by Sorrell, the world’s most famous advertising executive, after he left global market leader WPP , which he had founded and run for more than 30 years.
It grew quickly as Sorrell acquired businesses to combine consumer data with digital content that enabled the company to work with the likes of Meta Platforms Inc’s Facebook, Alphabet Inc’s Google, Burberry Group Plc and Netflix Inc.
Having listed in late 2016, it reached a stock market peak in August 2021, giving it a share price of 878 pence and a market cap of 4.9 billion pounds ($6.5 billion) before it started to slide as the group invested more in staff and technology.
Sorrell told the Times newspaper in February that he was considering a New York listing because it would “probably get a better valuation.”
Read Also: Ministry merges film media units with NFDC