S4 Capital to publish delayed results

S4 Capital is to publish its delayed results on Friday, more than a month after Sir Martin Sorrell’s advertising start-up announced its auditor had failed to sign off the accounts hours before their planned release.

The London-listed group has lost about a third of its market value since late March, when it delayed the publication of its results for a second time, prompting concern among investors over a potential problem with its accounts.

S4’s share price rose almost 20 per cent on Thursday after it issued a statement saying the results would be published on May 6. The company did not comment on the cause of the delay and Sorrell also declined to provide further explanation.

Sorrell launched S4 after his acrimonious departure in 2018 from WPP, the world’s largest advertising group, which he founded and led for three decades.

His new venture has expanded at breakneck speed and employs more than 7,500 people in 33 countries, having acquired 29 advertising agencies and media companies since its inception.

Many of S4’s deals have been funded by the issue of shares rather than cash payments, which means that the drag on the company’s share price has clouded its prospects for further expansion.

S4 said in early March that PwC, its auditor, needed more time to sign off its results because of “travel and resource allocation” issues caused by Covid-19.

The pandemic was not mentioned when the company a few weeks later unexpectedly cancelled the publication of its results for the second time, a day before they were due.

One analyst, who declined to be named, said last month that S4 had been “eerily and worrying silent” on the cause behind the delays.