Member Info for RunS4

Ahem, Pencil. Not sure why that'll be the case when S4 is doubling down and will continue to double down on using Gen AI for content creation!!

"One of the biggest takeaways from hashtag#CES2026 this year is that AI’s place in marketing is finally becoming more practical than hypothetical. It is no longer just about the “wow factor” of generative tech but about scalable, operational success. "

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/monks_ces2026-activity-7419437496671068160-yMTC?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m-FdhcgdPQ

We can only wait and see if all the noise they've been generating as a key sponsor at CES 2026 will actually result in topline growth for S4.

Davos - I can't really see that as a big money spinner for us, but hey ho!!

It's a silly comparison between Reach PLC's UKI focused digital ad revenues and S4's 80% US focused revenues. About par for the course for your 'analysis', Glow.

Wouldn't a better reason be that numpty trumpty has kicked-off a new bout of tariff related economic uncertainty that could still impinge on economic recovery and continued S4's revenue underoerformance. Not that S4 really needed that excuse in the past couple of years though!!!

1Pencil - you're conflating using Agentic and Gen AI to making marketing operations more streamlined to how a marketing service provider, whether it's a traditional agency like Publicis/WPP/Even S4 would bill for their work. I'm not interested in that angle and that will shake itself out over the next couple of years. Whatever the final commercial model is (traditional T&M/Output based and so on), Gen/Agentic AI is here to stay in our world and will make our space more efficient.

What I'm saying though is that this friction isn't quite why S4's performance has been dismal in the past 3 years. To borrow Clinton's winning message from the early90s - it's the Economy stupid..Plus of course missteps at our end with a highly concentrated tech client roster who're only interested in AI Capex spend still!!

I don't see a change of direction from an S4's POV. Their goal was always to leverage Gen AI to speed up content creation and deliver it at scale, and quickly. And then to use Agentic AI to orchestrate the right content to the user at hyperpersonalised scale. None of that has changed and if anything S4 has doubled down on that and will continue to do so - they have no choice or they risk getting left behind. Almost every agency is also doing this albeit their progress is varied when you look across the spectrum.

If you cut through the noise what's impacting S4 and other ad agenies' revenue trajectory is one very simple reality, economic uncertainty hammering ad spending and that's rather unevenly impacting some more than others - S4 because of excess tech sector reliance that was/is pumping huge capex into AI data centre projects and the fact we couldn't pivot quick enough to other sectors and even when we did, the new spend from these wins has been patchy and I dare wager its because of the economic uncertainty. And you then have the likes of Publicis who're killing WPP and taking business from them big time - and of course this is what is hammering WPP.

Gen AI and Agentic AI usage in the ad sector will only continue to increase as we roll through 2026 and that will make the sector more efficient. The only ingredient missing for us is growth outside of AI capex being back on the agenda in the US economy. The US market rally is widening out well beyond the Mag 7 and into Russell 2000 at a furious pace since the start of the year. Now if we were listed on deeper markets across the pond, we'd have seen a lot more stability in our stock price and likely none of 50% post-Christmas rally giveback that we've seen here, and on no volume. Now that's a story for another day.

A recovering US economy that drives ad spend growth is what Martin and co are waiting for, and that's why they're holding on to as many billable resources as they can for now. S4's story has been jam tomorrow since early 2023 - could 2026 be finally the year where our investments payoff? That's what we're waiting to find out. I can only realistically see growth in H2, but the market will want to hear about green shoots.

The wait continues!!!

"When price was almost touching 27p - there really is little to buy for. Are you going to bother for just over 10% ?"

Yes, you would for a 15% return if that money was tied in Cash/Gilts. You're getting those exact returns in under 6 months versus 3 years in those investments.. Of course this is not for stock market gamblers chasing higher returns, but for those needing a higher and certain cash/gilt like investment return.

OK, Caroline Kowall stopped being the Secretary at the end of November..I'd noted that Radhika had the Secretary role the last time I looked, but must be a recent thing.

She must be a casualty of the non-bill role head count reduction in Q4 last year - I'd welcome these reductions. And more!!!

Radhika has been the CFO and the Company Secretary for a while now - since May 2025. I didn't realise that was a surprise!!!

Good post, Brick104. To me that summarises the current challenges at S4 and no doubt exacerbated by the consulting business downturn since 2023/24. 2025 has been a write-off and one of the largest tech outsourcers/consulting firms out there, TCS, has confirmed what the market knows is happening in the tech consulting space and even in the marketing space.

https://archive.ph/orpus

I'm not sure if S4 will have had the additional visibility to give out a better forecast for 2026 by the time they report FY 25 earnings in a couple of months time, but pushing up EBITDA margins in 2026 is paramount and if that means more cost cuts in 2026 then we shouldn't be shy about making these.

New business wins driving up revenues is likely to highly correlated with US growth broadening out from being just a AI capex led one. if tariff headwinds even out, we'll have a fighting chance of getting there in 2026.

Cheers, Nige. It was shiite volumes all day and good that a bit of buying came about to push volumes and price up a bit.

Good weekend and we'll just have to see what next week brings.

Yes, sounds like it. That's possibly a £300 to £400k saving annually? Not sure of the rationale, but I suspect that he was asked to leave..

James Kinney, the CPO based out of the US, also left in December 25. With the volume of head count reductions happening at S4, probably not a surprise to see him go. That must be a good saving too!!

"you tube blabbering about WPP/Omnicom and we will still be at 20p. Being an S4 shareholder is exceptionally tedious in many different respects."

RWD - there's no defending Martin from what you wrote - it's certainly been the case since downturn started in 2022 and he's not acknowledged the fact that whilst the competition has been able to pull off growth to some extent, we're still in the dumps. I can't say the end for revenue declines at S4 is nigh and in MS I trust - both will ring hollow in light of the last couple of years' performance, but if the US macro holds up OK then we'll have a fighting chance of hitting some growth in 2026. They've cut costs plenty and may well need to cut a lot more if business doesn't come back in H1.

Young Martin was at a Fireside event last night, at no less than the CES event in LV, ginning up support for S4 tech driven marketing capabilities. We're doing just fine.

In the meantime, have you looked down at your short(s), and the behind for good measure, to check the damage inflicted on your rather flimsily crafted positions? I'll leave you to your posts as your love for martin looks rather boundless and you won't stop spreading that love on this board.

I wonder how 10p PointLess2000 is feeling this morning after very large holes were noted in his shorts - it isn't a sight to behold though as the backside seems to have vanished.

Wowie!!! THat's fab volumes..

I wish I had a bit more money to put into S4 in the last leg down in November/December, but I did buy more, brought my average down to just under 30p with my highest holding ever... Here's hoping to a fantastic 2026 for us suffering lot. :-)

Cheers, Nige. Not sure whats causing this nice runup - possibly better last 2 months in 2025, with better visibility in 2026 OR investors taking another look at this undervalued beauty with a good yield with normalised discretionary spend patterns to emerge in the US this year.

Very welcome though!!!

"AI is going to speed up data prediction models , ..and will be used in every sector across the entire world.... AI along with advanced algorithms..of machine learning ... to learn more in the next say 10 years than the last 50-100

The initial costs and "losses" are nothing compared to the potential which will be the akin to the next "revolution" in terms of human advancements and speed of developments"

We know these are indeed the talking points for the hyperscalers and their cousins pumping billions in Capex into AI related infrastructure, but the answer to whether these are generating sufficient outcomes to real business problems may be far more nuanced. SalesForce has already said they are pulling from generative AI driven use cases which are currently unreliable/fault ridden, to more Augmented Machine Learning models which are predictive in nature. LLMs delivering reliable Gen AI models is sometime away. But AMLs delivering Agentic AI models are indeed getting better and this is where companies like Capita using SalesForce Agentic AI models are supposedly seeing tangible business outcome improvements on their AI technology investments. Probably early inning improvements and hopefully these will keep getting better over time.

The real question is whether the final rate of return on these massive capex investments when you know that the hyperscalers and other software capexers' investment case stacks up against a 4 year depreciation cycle versus a 3 year depreciation cycle for AI chips when the efficiency of these chips after 12 to 18 months is still a question mark. And hence why Michael Burry has been shouting bubble to anyone who's willing to listen to him, but I suspect that as usual he's a bit too early in his AI bubble thesis, just like he was during the subprime crisis back in 2007/08.

This academic debate over AI and AI Capex aside, AI will definitely make businesses more efficient - it's the scale of the efficiencies and who will benefit from these capex investments - that's the bit that should be of interest to watchers such as us with a vested interest in seeing how S4 can grow from here on.

"Maybe a bit of a contrarian view but I see S4's recovery driven more by a realisation of Ai's inherent limitations, perhaps an epiphany moment as CEO's revert back to more traditional models, those last two quotes from martin's latest interview may point to such..?"

1Pencil - I don't quite view it as a contrarian view. All the capex being dumped into AI data centres/chips/other bits & bobs, they ultimately need to generate better business outcomes for both companies that directly use them (cut headount to automate manual/repetitive tasks) and those that use them to deliver better services at scale for other companies (tech/BPO/marketing services).

We fit in the second bracket and we should have an important role to play once discretionary spend comes back and marketign spend squarely is in this category. Will 2026 bring a turn in the US economy outside of AI Capex spend - that's the million dollar question and a positive outcome here is what we should closely watch for...

Who's buying S4 at these levels, whilst PointLess2000 is getting his short backside handed to him?

Keep posting PointLess2000. Long may this merry run continue whilst you keep spouting your incessant tripe!!

And one last point on this topic. It suits Martin just fine to stay listed on this exchange even though 80% of revenues are from the US and shareholders stand to benefit from a much deeper US stock market.

1. He doesn't have to deliver quarterly earnings reports/forecasts/calls

2. He doesn't get his backside sued like he would in the US should he keep missing his revenue and adjusted earnings forecasts and the stock falls as a consequence.

LSE - then and now, there is a big difference.

Brexit - less participants, many having headed back across to mainland Europe and that creates next to no depth. And the only metric that ever matters is revenue growth. If that wasn't fu*cked up enough, all you need now is a few fear-mongers on message boards to talk tripe and the stock prices actually respond directionally on a day to day basis.

I don't deny that S4 is a different company in 2025 versus 2021/22 with negative growth, but it is still a FCF generating business with no distressed debt overhang.