Sir Martin Sorrell, the advertising magnate, received a number of merger approaches for S4 Capital, the marketing services group listed in London that it founded seven years ago.
Sky News can reveal that Sir Martin has been contacted in recent weeks by potential contenders, notably One Equity Partners, an investment capital company based in the United States which focuses on the acquisition of companies in the health, industrial and technology sectors.
This weekend, analysts suggested that equity would seek to combine S4 Capital with MSQ, a group of creative and technological agencies it bought in 2023.
Further details on the possible link were not clear on Saturday, especially if an official proposal had been made or if the capital S4 could remain listed on the London Scholarship if an agreement should be concluded.
S4 Capital would also be supposed to have aroused recent interests on the part of other parties, whose identity could not be immediately established.
In March 2024, the Wall Street Journal reported that Sir Martin had rejected several offers from Stagwell, an advertising group led by Mark Penn, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton.
New Mountain Capital, another American investment company, was also said at the time for having had discussions on the purchase of parts or the entire S4 Capital.
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The news of the approach of actions puts the company founded by one of the most important commercial figures in Great Britain firmly at stake after a hot period during which it was shaken by macroeconomic winds and a certain number of accounting problems.
Sir Martin founded S4 Capital in 2018, months after his unexpected and acrimonious departure from WPP, the group he transformed from a wire basket manufacturer in the largest marketing service provider in the world.
The businessman, who has control of the vote at S4 Capital, used his deep network of institutional relations to collect funds for an acquisition frenzy in S4, which included agencies focused on technology such as Mediamonks and Mightyhive.
S4 customers now include Alphabet, Amazon, General Motors, Meta, T-Mobile and Walmart.
Sir Martin’s decision to target acquisitions in digital content and programmatic media arenas reflected the priorities of what he described as a group of marketing services for a new era.
At WPP, he was the architect of a strategy now replicated to collect hundreds of agency brands under a single portfolio company.
As he resigned, WPP was the owner of creative agency networks such as JWT and Ogilvy, while his media purchase muscle was channeled by the global subsidiary.
The latest approaches to S4 Capital occur during a period of profound change in the world marketing services industry, while artificial intelligence dismantles the practices and the creative processes that had evolved over the decades.
Sir Martin has rejected some opportunities to criticize his successor at WPP, Mark Read, as well as the wider advertising industry, during the seven years which followed the creation of S4 Capital.
Last month, WPP announced that Mr. Read would be replaced by Cindy Rose, a senior manager from Microsoft who sat on the company’s board of directors as a non -executive director since 2019.
“Cindy has supported the digital transformation of large companies around the world – in particular by adopting AI to create new customer experiences, commercial models and sources of income,” said WPP president Philip Jansen.
“Its expertise in this landscape will be extremely precious for WPP while industry browse on fundamental changes and macroeconomic uncertainty.”
The WPP has also lost its status as the largest marketing services in the world in Publicis, and will be even more avoided behind the largest players in the sector once the takeover of the interpublic group of $ 13.25 billion in the Omnicom group (9.85 billion pounds sterling) of the interpublique group will be completed.
At the time of the release of Sir Martin de WPP in April 2018, the company had a market capitalization of more than 16 billion pounds sterling.
Friday, its market value at its closing course of 367.5p was only 4.23 billion pounds sterling.
Last month, the media campaign of the advertising industry said that WPP had provisional discussions with the consulting firm Accenture on a potential combination or partnership, highlighting the pressure on inherited marketing services groups.
This weekend, it remained clear to what extent it was likely that Sir Martin will conclude an agreement to combine capital S4 with another player in the industry as an MSQ belonging to actions.
The shares of S4 Capital closed on Friday at 9:2 p.m. on Friday, giving the company a market capitalization of 140 million pounds sterling.
The stock has dropped almost 60% in the last 12 months and is more than 90% less than its peak in 2022.
At one point, Sir Martin’s participation in S4 Capital was estimated at nearly 500 million pounds Sterling.
A spokesperson for S4 refused to comment, while a spokesperson for a capital partner said by e-mail: “OEP does not comment on this question.”