S4 Reporting Delays Cause Share Price Slump

Shares in Sir Martin Sorrell's digital advertising group S4 Capital have slumped after its auditors PwC this week delayed the release of its preliminary statement of results for the second time in a month. The stock remained down 1/3 tonight even after a slight Friday recovery.

PwC at the beginning of March requested more time to complete their audit process due to 'the impact of Covid and Omicron on travel and resource allocation, particularly in the Netherlands', then said this Wednesday that they were still not ready for the rescheduled deadline of Thursday 31st - further detail as to why has not been forthcoming. S4 said the results would be out as soon as PwC completed the work, and stated that it believes 2021 results are 'within the range of market expectations', with strong trading since: nevertheless investors were evidently nervous and from a monthly high of 482p on March 29th shares fell to 289p on Thursday evening, recovering only slightly to 321p at the close today (Friday).

S4 was set up by Sorrell (pictured) just six weeks after he departed WPP, funded partly by £40m of his own money. The company has made a string of acquisitions, in keeping with Sorrell's approach of many decades, and continued this into 2022 with the January purchase of Santa Cruz, CA-based 4 Mile Analytics. The group reported a very strong bounce post-Covid, with like-for-like gross profit (net revenue) up 49% in the first half of 2021, and pro forma EBITDA up 36% - shortly after this was reported in the second week of September, S4 reached a high point with a market value of £4.8bn (share price 870p). Sorrell owns around 10% of the company.

Web site: www.s4capital.com .