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LONDON, Sept 11 (Reuters) - Martin Sorrell said his new
digital advertising company S4 Capital was increasingly
being asked to bid for major corporate accounts, keeping it on
track to double the size of the company by 2021.
Sorrell launched S4 Capital last year after he left the
world's biggest advertising company WPP, which he had
founded. He said on Wednesday he was focusing on growing revenue
and gross profit at the expense of slightly lower earnings, to
build momentum.
The group has already won work from the likes of Procter &
Gamble, Nestle, Coca-Cola and Sprint and said it was being asked
to bid for other major clients.
"We've got three major global pitches at the moment,"
Sorrell said in an interview. "We're very pleased, we want to
double the size of the business in three years, organically, and
we're well on the way to doing that."
Sorrell, who left WPP over a complaint of personal
misconduct, which he denied, has bought businesses which create
content, and others which buy online advertising space
automatically, enabling S4 Capital to offer an integrated
service.
He is aggressively building up the firm to be able to
compete with the major advertising groups, taking headcount to
1,375 people by the end of the first half and adding senior
management. It is also looking to make more acquisitions to
build up its content, programmatic buying, and data and
analytics capabilities.
"We've got a couple of things that we will finance
internally, one in the UK and one in Asia which we'll add fairly
quickly," he said.
For the first six months of the year the group reported
billings of 184 million pounds ($228 million), up 44% on a
pro-forma basis. Gross profit also accelerated through the year,
rising by 34% in the first quarter, up 46% in the second quarter
and up 54% in July from a year earlier.
($1 = 0.8089 pounds)
(Reporting by Kate Holton; Editing by Susan Fenton)
