Sir Martin Sorrell Sees No Easy Exit for Holding Companies14 Jun 2026 11:10
Https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/sir-martin-sorrell-sees-no-211608152.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall
ADWEEK sat down with Sorrell to get his read on the market, who should buy whom, his competitors (whom he's never been shy to criticize), and S4's next steps.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. It was conducted before Publicis said it would buy LiveRamp, and Accenture said it would buy Whalar.
ADWEEK: The ad agency holdcos have gone from the biggest industry acquirers to acquisition targets. What's the outlook?
SIR MARTIN SORRELL: There are very few, if any, exits. No activists have stepped in. There are no takers. Most of the big deals would involve syndicates. One PE firm couldn't write the check for WPP or Dentsu. Maybe Bain Capital could have done it on their own.
Besides Publicis, is any big holdco a buyer at this point?
Omnicom probably isn't. Dentsu is not going to be in buying mode. Stagwell will try. The irony may be, this is the time to take the risk because valuations are so battered. But I don't think people would take a risk.
If anyone was going to take a risk, who do you think it would be?
Well, Havas. Maybe not of scale. But [Havas CEO Yannick] Bolloré always sends you in the wrong direction. Always. Keeps you guessing.
And I think Accenture. If I was [Accenture CEO] Julia [Sweet], I would go for WPP. With them, they could get significantly better. I think the media piece in their hands would be very valuable. But whether they've got the balls though… It would be messy. But you've got David Droga there.
Publicis has been on a successful run. Is it sustainable?
What Publicis does-everybody says it's all proprietary trading, which is why I think The Trade Desk thing is dangerous territory for them, they're going to turn the microscope on themselves-is they look at the client as a whole.
Omnicom and WPP are falling into the trap of the matrix being driven by capability. The reorganization of WPP and the reorganization of Omnicom is capability-first, client second, geography third. Publicis and, indeed, ourselves is geography first, client second, capability third.
What's wrong with organizing around capability?
You have warring factions. If you do it by country, you have inter-country rivalry, inter-region rivalry, that's true, but you get people to integrate what they do. Publicis got it right. Can they maintain it? Well, the industry wisdom is these things go in cycles.
Actually, John Wren, if you look at Omnicom Advertising Group before they acquired IPG, had a better strategy. He was trying to push them together. Publicis didn't nudge. They were quite forceful. And it was painful for them. They were more violent than probably I would have been. But directionally, it was the same thing.
What do the holdcos look like in three years?
I don't know what [WPP CEO] Cindy [Rose] is going to do. She has huge balance sheet problems. But I would guess Omnicom
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