Sorrell’s S4 Capital again postpones annual results release, shares plunge

S4 Capital Plc shares fell for a second day after Martin Sorrell’s digital advertising firm delayed publishing its annual results again, wiping about 1.2 billion pounds ($1.6 billion) in market value from the media company over the past two days.

On Wednesday S4 shares fell the most ever after again postponing the release of its 2021 preliminary results—due Thursday—because PriceWaterhouseCoopers was unable to complete the audit work on time.

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Shares in S4 continued to drop in London on Thursday, falling as much as 12.7%. 

It’s the second time the digital advertising firm has postponed the announcement, having already done so at the start of March when it cited Covid’s impact on travel and resources for PwC’s request for an extension to complete the work. 

Morgan Stanley analyst Omar Sheikh said that, based on conversations with the company, the reason for the delay is no longer a resource issue, and the lack of a revised date suggests the problem is “non-trivial.”

Spokespeople for S4 and PwC declined to comment. 

“We do not yet know the precise details of what the problem is, but believe that PwC is unlikely to have taken the decision lightly,” said Conor O’Shea, analyst at Kepler Cheuvreux. “While it would be too much to say that this has echoes of Wirecard, at first sight it may be similar to the accounting issues that besieged Atos in 2021.”

French firm Atos issued a string of profit warnings over the past year, after it found accounting errors at two of its U.S. entities. 

In its original statement at the beginning of March, S4 Capital said that due to the impact of Covid and Omicron on travel and resource allocation, particularly in the Netherlands, PwC had requested a further period to complete its audit work.

S4 has a major presence in the Netherlands after its 2018 acquisition of digital agency MediaMonks Multimedia Holding BV, its first major deal since Sorrell founded the company after his acrimonious departure from WPP. S4 has since rolled a number of smaller acquisitions into the Dutch unit. 

S4 hired a new chief financial officer, Mary Basterfield, in January. The collapse in S4’s share price will damage its strategy of deal-making funded by issuing its own shares. 

S4 said late Wednesday it will now release the preliminary results as soon as the auditor’s work is completed.

“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,” according to Wednesday’s statement. 

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—Bloomberg News